La chute chez la personne âgée : une modalité suicidaire ?

Falls are a frequent phenomenon among the elderly and sometimes fraught with consequences. Some falls question the clinician as to their mental determinism and as for their suicidal intentionality. Certain clinical situations are sometimes in favor of a suicidal initiative of the elderly person through his/her fall. All this makes falls a means of non-verbal communication; when the words are running out, the subject lets go and falls. The suicidal risk increases as the person gets older. The prevention of the suicidal risk involves a screening for nervous breakdown, often under-diagnosed and under-treated.