Given health and health economy assessments, a common assessment framework for active and healthy ageing (CAFAHA) is ideally desirable, even if not yet fully feasible, given the activities developed within European Innovation Partnership for Active and Healthy Ageing (EIP on AHA) since 2012, now moving into its subsequent framework on healthy ageing. However, as there is diversity with respect to maturity in regions, in order to fully develop prevention practices and campaigns, assets as part of maturity need to be defined more clearly.
TopEip On Aha And Its Action Groups
The Strategic Implementation Plan of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (EIP on AHA) proposed six Action Groups, one of which being Action Group A2 on Falls Prevention. Action Group A2 has been active since 2012, and work has been implemented in accordance with the Action Groups’ Renovated Action Plans (2016-2018, 2018-2020). The outcomes and impact of synergies are using the Monitoring and Assessment Framework for the EIP on AHA (MAFEIP). Synergies between action groups (Bousquet et al, 2016) have been cross-cutting in overarching domains involving falls, frailty, and integrated care.
The main objective of the Action Group A2 remains focused on the contribution to foster innovation in personal health management through validated programmes and good practices for early diagnosis and preventive measures (including health promotion), with falls prevention as a first use case. A2 now also clearly underlines the need to prevent falls rather than just aiming to help and advise organisations on their efforts to create procedures to implement practices targeting the prevention of falls.
Integrated, interdisciplinary and inter-professional education for all stakeholders is needed to tackle the interrelated syndrome of frailty, malnutrition, falls, chronic diseases and their social consequences. It is important to continue to educate seniors, health and social carers and entrepreneurs with focus on falls prevention. The general objective will remain to be the development of an innovative, dynamic and sustainable care system for AHA through capacity building using senior/patient-centred, multidisciplinary and inter-professional educational programmes aimed at patients, patient caregivers (both formal and informal), health and social carers, administrators and entrepreneurs.
Falls prevention activities continue to support country and regional ambitions in falls prevention, including both the development of new prevention programmes as well as the implementation of existing ones. Countries and regions include Ireland, Finland, Scotland, Algarve (Portugal), Campania (Italy), Styria (Austria), Västerbotten (Sweden) and cooperation has been established in many other countries and regions. There is cooperation also with organisations and societies including the European Geriatric Medicine Society (EuGMS) and its working groups and task forces.
The Action Group A2 Action Plan continued to emphasise activities also appearing within the Synergies Task Force (Bousquet et al, 2016):
Practices are processes and pathways, characterised by their information content. Personalised care and prevention require a personalised condition and functioning assessment, i.e., health assessment, as a basis for intervention and prevention. In the case of Action Group A2 this implies a focus on falls and fall related injuries and their prevention. This represents the bottom-up view on assessment, which indeed is personalised and functioning oriented. The A2 Information & Process model was initiated for Ireland and Scotland in 2016 and was extended during 2016-2018 with more focus on process modelling. During 2018-2020, information modelling including health and risk assessment, will become further strengthened.
Regarding risk assessment (involving postural control, medical conditions, drugs, psychology, mood and environmental aspects) fall risk increasing drugs (FRID) [de Vries, 2018; Seppälä, 2018a; Seppälä, 2018b] have received special and detailed attention. They have been recognised within the Synergies Task Force and within the EUGMS Task and Finish Group on fall-risk-increasing drugs, in cooperation with Action Group A2.