Author Identifier (ORCID)
Brett Vaughan: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8623-4558
Abstract
Objective: Falls among community-dwelling older adults are prevalent and have serious individual, societal and economic consequences. Allied health professionals provide key falls prevention interventions yet their representation in current clinical practice guidelines is inconsistent. Increased recognition of allied health roles and delivering context-specific guidelines for falls care could help to address workforce gaps and optimise care approaches. This scoping review explored the roles of the allied health professions in falls prevention screening, assessment and intervention for community-dwelling older adults. Design: Scoping review, using the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology for scoping reviews. Data sources: PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, Cochrane, Web of Science and Allied and Complementary Medicine Database databases. The initial search was completed in November 2023, with a secondary search performed in July 2025. Eligibility criteria: Sources were eligible if they identified or described a specific role of at least one allied health professional in falls prevention care for older adults. No restrictions were placed on publication type or date. Study protocols and conference abstracts were excluded, and only English-language sources were included. Data extraction and synthesis: ChatGPT-4o was used for initial data extraction. Authors then cross-checked and updated inaccuracies as required. A numerical descriptive analysis, and a qualitative content analysis were performed to answer the research questions. Results: The search identified 442 relevant sources from 34 countries. The roles of 17 allied health professions in falls prevention for community-dwelling older adults were discussed. Screening, assessment and intervention roles were identified spanning medical, physical capacity, environmental, education and behavioural–psychological domains. Profession-specific interventions closely aligned with their primary scope of practice, and notable areas of overlap between professions were highlighted. Conclusion: This review highlights the diverse and overlapping contributions of allied health professionals to falls prevention in community-dwelling older adults. Varying levels of evidence are available across the professions and evidence gaps were highlighted for smaller allied health professions, indicating a need for foundational research to substantiate their roles and facilitate their inclusion in future practice guidelines. Trial registration details: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/7SV3F.
Keywords
aging, geriatric medicine, health services for the aged, preventive health services, primary health care
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of Publication
5-1-2026
Volume
16
Issue
5
Publication Title
BMJ Open
Publisher
BMJ Publishing Group
School
School of Medical and Health Sciences
Funding Information
This work received no formal external funding. Amy Lawton is supported by an Australian Government research training program scholarship and stipend.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Comments
Lawton, A., Tripodi, N., Wospil, R., Wright, B. M., Menz, H. B., Martin, S., Bonanno, D. R., Linton, C., Bastani, A., Ross, A., Thomas, R., Corcoran, D., McNamara, T., Baxter, D., Vaughan, B., Lane, R., & Feehan, J. (2026). Role of allied health professions in falls prevention for community-dwelling older adults: A scoping review. BMJ Open, 16(5), e113943. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2025-113943