==== Front
Innov Aging
Innov Aging
innovateage
Innovation in Aging
2399-5300 Oxford University Press US 

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.2781
igaa057.2781
Abstracts
Session 7115 (Symposium)
AcademicSubjects/SOC02600
Comparing Longitudinal Changes in Physical Activity and Fear of Falling in Non-Fallers, Fallers, and Injurious Fallers
E Jian-Yu 1 Schrack Jennifer 2 Mihailovic Aleksandra 3 Li Tianjing 4 Friedman David 5 West Sheila 6 Gitlin Laura 7 Ramulu Pradeep 6 1 
Johns hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, United States
2 
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, United States
3 
Johns Hopkins University/Wilmer Eye Institute, Baltimore, Maryland, United States
4 
University of Colorado, Arora, Colorado, United States
5 
Massachusetts Eye and Ear, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
6 
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, United States
7 
Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
2020 
16 12 2020 
16 12 2020 
4 Suppl 1 Program Abstracts from The GSA 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting “Turning 75: Why Age Matters”770 770
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America.2020This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Abstract
Older adults with visual impairments experience a higher risk of falling, and are more vulnerable to associated adverse health consequences than those with normal vision. We investigated the onset and magnitude of declines in physical activity (PA), and corresponding changes in self-reported fear of falling (FoF) in 234 visually impaired persons (mean age=69.8, 48.7% women) over three years. PA was measured using the Actical hip-worn accelerometer and falls were reported using a calendar. In fully adjusted linear models, PA declined 426 steps/year (p<0.01) and 15.1 active minutes/year (p<0.01) among injurious fallers compared to non-fallers; PA did not change among non-injurious fallers. No longitudinal declines in FoF scores were observed. Among visually impaired older adults, an injurious fall contributed to subsequent declines in activity, although FoF remained unchanged. Further longitudinal research is warranted to better understand how different groups respond to falls, either by behavioral changes and/or changes in FoF.