ABSTRACT

Acknowledgments ..................................................................................................................... 703 References.................................................................................................................................... 703

26.1 Introduction Injuries are considered predictable entities with known extrinsic and intrinsic risk factors (Smith, 1987). Although the intrinsic or individual risk factors appear to be a primary cause of falls in older people (Tideiksaar, 1990; Simoneau et al., 1991), the extrinsic or environmental factors seem to initiate most falls among the healthy adult population under 65 years (Grönqvist, 1995). The latter includes problems with the walking surface such as contamination, irregularities or obstacles, and deficient footwear or inadequate illumination (Grönqvist et al., 2001a; Redfern et al., 2001). Water, oil, organic debris, soil, snow, and other contaminants may act as contributing factors in as many as 80% of slip-related injury incidents (Grönqvist, 1999; Leclercq, 1999).