ATLANTA - The elderly fear breaking a hip when they fall, but a government study indicates that hitting their head can also have deadly consequences: Brain injuries account for half of all deaths from falls.

The study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is the first comprehensive national look at the role brain injuries play in fatal elderly falls. It examined 16,000 deaths in 2005 that listed unintentional falls as an underlying cause of death.

MONDAY, May 12 (HealthDay News) -- A new way of analyzing MRI data can detect a subtle but serious kind of brain injury and help determine how a patient may recover, say researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.