Psychological factors, more commonly referred to the “fear of falling syndrome”, have
been linked to significant reductions of daily activities in fallers resulting in a loss of
independence (Maki et al., 1991). Interestingly enough, this fear of falling has been observed
in healthy subjects as well as those individuals who have a previous fall history (Silverton
and Tideiksaar, 1989). As a result, this functional tool would present rather confounding
results when used as an independent measure of fall status.