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Background: fall-related injuries in older adults are a major public heath challenge., Methods: we determined the current trends in the number and age-adjusted incidence of fall-induced severe cervical spine injuries among older adults in Finland by taking into account all persons in 50 years of age or older who were admitted to Finnish hospitals for primary treatment of these injuries between 1970 and 2011. Similar patients aged 20-49 years served as a reference group., Results: the number of fall-induced cervical spine injuries among older Finns rose six-fold from 59 in 1970 to 372 in 2011. The age-adjusted incidence of injury (per 100 000 persons) was higher in men than in women throughout this period and showed a clear increase from 1970 to 2011: from 8.5 to 20.3 in men, and from 2.8 to 11.7 in women. In both sexes, the increase was most prominent in the oldest age group, persons aged 70 years or older. In the reference group, the injury incidence did not rise by time., Conclusions: the number and incidence of fall-induced severe cervical spine injuries among older Finns increased considerably between 1970 and 2011. An increase in the average risk of serious falls may partly explain the phenomenon. Wide-scale fall and injury prevention measures are urgently needed, because further ageing of the population is likely to worsen the problem in the near future., (© The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Geriatrics Society. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Background: Elderly people's fall-induced injuries are a major public health challenge., Methods: We determined the current trends in the number and age-adjusted incidence (per 100,000 persons) of fall-induced injuries among older adults in Finland by taking into account all persons 80 years of age or older who were admitted to Finnish hospitals for primary treatment of a first fall injury over the period 1970-2009., Results: The number of fall-induced injuries in elderly Finns increased considerably during the study period: for women and men separately, these numbers were from 927 to 10,333 (an 11-fold rise), and from 212 to 3,258 (a 15-fold rise), respectively. In both genders, the age-adjusted incidence (per 100,000 persons) of fall-induced injuries increased till the late 1990s but decreased thereafter, the incidence being 2,729 (women) and 1,455 (men) in 1970, and 5,930 (women) and 4,240 (men) in 2009. Even with the current injury incidence the number of these injuries is expected to more than double by the year 2030., Conclusion: The rise in the age-adjusted incidence of hospital-treated fall injuries of 80 year old and older Finns from the 1970s to the late 1990s has been followed by declining injury rates. Despite this we have to effectively continue implementation of fall prevention actions.