Tinetti fall risk calculator

The Tinetti Performance-Oriented Mobility Assessment, often called POMA or the Tinetti fall risk score, is a bedside additive scale used in geriatrics, rehabilitation, and physiotherapy to grade sitting and standing balance together with gait. This calculator accepts the sixteen published item scores—nine balance items that total at most sixteen points and seven gait items that total at most twelve—and returns the subscale totals, the combined score from 0 through 28, and the conventional fall-risk category.

What the Tinetti POMA measures and how the sixteen items add up

The Tinetti Performance-Oriented Mobility Assessment was described by Mary Tinetti in 1986 as a practical way to watch an older adult sit, stand, turn, and walk, then convert those observations into two additive subscales instead of a single global impression of frailty. The balance subscale contains nine items. Sitting balance is scored 0 or 1 depending on whether the person leans or slides in the chair or remains steady and safe.

Arises, attempts to arise, immediate standing balance during the first five seconds, standing balance, the sternal nudge, turning through 360 degrees, and sitting down are each scored 0, 1, or 2 according to the published descriptors for inability, partial independence, and steady unassisted performance. Eyes closed in a narrow stance is scored 0 or 1. Those nine integers sum to at most sixteen points.

The gait subscale contains seven items. Initiation of gait, step symmetry, step continuity, and walking stance are each scored 0 or 1. Step length and height is the grouped item worth up to four points, awarding one point for each of right swing past the stance foot, right foot clearance, left swing past the stance foot, and left foot clearance.

Path and trunk are each scored 0, 1, or 2. Those seven integers sum to at most twelve points. The Tinetti total is the sum of the two subscales and therefore ranges from 0 through 28.

Conventional teaching bands then map that total onto fall risk: totals from 0 through 18 indicate high risk, 19 through 24 indicate moderate risk, and 25 through 28 indicate low risk.

How to read fall-risk categories, where the calculator belongs, and what it does not decide

A total of 25 through 28 is taught as low fall risk, 19 through 24 as moderate fall risk, and 0 through 18 as high fall risk. Those bands are the conventional classroom and clinic cutoffs used with the Tinetti POMA; they are not a personal probability of falling during the next year, and they do not replace a history of previous falls, orthostatic blood pressure, a medication review, vision, footwear, home hazards, or a licensed clinician's view of strength, cognition, and the walking environment.

A low-risk total does not certify that a person is safe to walk unattended on stairs, outdoors, or in an unfamiliar building. Use the calculator for education, exam keys, research coding of geriatric mobility rows, and product prototypes that need a deterministic Tinetti step before handing off to licensed clinical systems. Do not discharge a patient, prescribe or withhold a walking aid, complete a fall-prevention care plan, or make a legal capacity statement from this result alone.

Neighbouring instruments such as the Berg Balance Scale, the Timed Up and Go, or the Morse Fall Scale answer different search intents and should keep their own landings rather than being overloaded on this page.