ARE YOU AFRAID OF HAVING A FALL?

If you are getting older and you are afraid of having a fall you are in good company. You should be afraid. Falls are the single worst thing that can happen to us as we age.​ Having a fall carries with it the potential for dramatically changing the quality of our life forever.

This article shows you how to significantly reduce the likelihood that you will fall. There are many ways we can do this. But first, let's look at why falls are so dangerous and dispiriting.

Falls decrease our ability to remain independent.

  • One third of people over the age of 65 and one half of people over 85 fall each year.
  • People over 85 are 10-15 times more likely to get injured than those 60-65. 
  • If you are 75 and have a fall, you are 4-5 times more likely to have to spend at least 1 year in a nursing home. 
  • Falls account for 40% of all nursing home admissions. 40% of those people do not return to independent living. 
  • 20-30% of patients with hip fractures due to a fall die within a year because of inability to remain active.​
  • Having a fall is frequently the cause of losing independence. It is often the pivotal event that forces you to move from your home to a nursing home or assisted living facility.
  • Having a fall is also in far too many cases the cause of someone older dying. As I write this, Representative Louise Slaughter (D/NY) died today (3/16/18) from a concussion she suffered from a fall a week ago. As the subject is brought up on social media, commentary is flooded by stories of elder relatives who sustained a fall and then declined rapidly. 
​If you value living in your own home learn how to prevent having falls. If you want your elders' lives extended, teach them
​how to prevent having falls.

How a fall can change the quality of your life forever:
I once knew a lovely older lady who fell over backwards watching an air show. She broke her hip. She required surgery. She recovered quickly. However, the shock of the experience sent her into full blown dementia and she required intensive personal care the rest of her life.

Falls change how and what we do.

Every time you have a fall, 2 things happen:
  1. We may or may not have a physical injury.
  2. We always experience a shock to our system that leaves us feeling shaky and unstable. 

Unfortunately many interpret our shakiness as simply getting older and so we stop doing as much. For instance, if we fall coming down a staircase we will often avoid them in the future and that limits what we decide to do. The increase in inactivity reduces our strength, balance and coordination and we find ourselves actually MORE likely to fall as a result. One study showed that one half of people who sustained a hip fracture from a fall, fell again within 6 months. 

So having a fall can transform our older years into fearful and less active ones, affecting the entire rest of our life.

Falls often happen without warning.

Take a survey of your friends and your own experiences with falls. I bet almost all of them happened suddenly and without notice. We are walking along and - boom - we are down on the floor. Often we don't even realize what caused the fall. Because we have no forewarning, we tend to think there is nothing we can do to prevent it.

This is a myth that is incorrect. Actually there are things you can do to stop the fall once in progress but in general, you can prevent the things that cause the fall in the first place. And there are literally thousands of things you can do to reduce your Fall Associated Risk.

When in doubt reduce your Fall Associated Risk.

Fall Associated Risk is very similar in concept to the risk of having a heart attack. We minimize that risk by changing our diet, our exercise and our stress level. We can make similar changes to our Fall Associated Risk. Every single thing that we do in our daily lives either increases or decreases that risk. For example, crossing the street outside of a pedestrian cross walk increases your risk of having a fall. If you cross illegally you rush. Rushing is a huge and frequent cause of falls. So your action increases your risk.

Here are some other familiar ways we increase our risk:
  • We wear slip on shoes or slippers that have no back.
  • We don't have adequate lighting available in the middle of the night.
  • We don't use the brakes on a walker when sitting or standing.
  • We look up without holding onto something. Closets are especially dangerous.

Here are some ways we can easily reduce our fall risk:
  • Exercise your feet while still in bed, either lying down or sitting on the edge of your mattress.
  • Take your time when answering the phone or the door.
  • Look where you are walking instead of down at the ground. (Learn the proper way of walking and practice it under safe conditions.)
  • Strengthen your core. Improve your posture.
  • Learn to pick your feet up when you walk.

The biggest reason by far that we fall is because we become less active. Huge contributing factors include not picking your feet up and not being aware of your surroundings. For more on tricks to use to fall less read my article "Valuable Fall Prevention Tips".

What happens physically as we get older?
  • Our legs and feet don't work like they used to.
  • We use our core muscles less and we feel weaker.
  • We become stiff particularly the calves, hamstrings, neck and lower back.
  • The nerves of the spine often become inflamed causing conditions like spinal stenosis, sciatica, scoliosis, herniated disks.
  • Our posture deteriorates.
  • We suffer from chronic conditions like arthritis, peripheral neuropathy, Parkinson's, stroke.
  • We sit more.
  • Our balance deteriorates.
  • We have falls.

Every single one of these factors can be reduced or eliminated with consistent movement.

Specifically, what happens when we sit a lot?
  • Being stationary is the real problem.
  • Our abdominals disengage. This causes the bones and disks of the spine to compress more, exacerbating any existing conditions.
  • Our posture worsens and our rib cage and lungs compress. This causes shallower breathing and ultimately increases our anxiety.
  • The back of the legs tighten and the muscles shorten. Night leg cramps often result.
  • Sitting is not resting. After a short period of legitimate physical rest, the body quickly becomes tighter the longer the inactivity. In other words, doing nothing makes you tense.
  • Because there is less activity, circulation is affected, the nervous system is more and more compromised, pain level increases and importantly, attitude is affected. One common result is depression.

We can avoid most of the negative effects of prolonged sitting by being active for 5 minutes every hour. You can get up to stretch you legs for a few minutes. You can do seated lower back stretches. Move around in your chair. Do not let feeling stiff dissuade you. If you feel stiff it means it's time to move.

What can exercise accomplish? When practiced consistently, exercise can erase entirely or greatly improve many of the negative effects of aging:
  • Exercise increases strength, flexibility, coordination, balance.
  • Using specific exercises, we can learn to walk with much less difficulty.
  • Exercise reduces pain and inflammation in arthritic joints.
  • Exercise reduces or eliminate lower back pain.
  • Exercise heals injuries.
  • Exercise reduces dizziness.
  • Exercise eliminates leg cramps.
  • Exercise reduces your fall associated risk exponentially. That means a little exercise lowers the likelihood of you falling a lot.

Exercise is by far the most important thing you can do
to stop having falls. Here's what you should do:

 1) Strengthen the legs, feet and core.
2) Increase flexibility in the legs, hips and spine.
3) Release tension in the lower back, neck and shoulders.
4) Improve eye/balance coordination.
5) Practice balance.
6) BECOME MORE ACTIVE.

But we have roadblocks on our path to reducing having falls.

Unfortunately relatively few people take advantage of the suggestions described here. We tend to be our own worst enemy. The term "exercise" causes many to recoil in dread. We can always find something else we would rather do and many people are actually angrily resistant. In my journeys over 20 years among those older I have found that about 90 to 95% of those older refuse to be active. It is often the people who need it the most who are least likely to get involved.

One of the reasons for this in my opinion is that inactivity makes us resistant in our thinking. We don't exercise because we don't want to.

Reasons we give ourselves about why we can't exercise:
  • I don't have the time. Make the time. Your health and happiness depend on it.
  • I don't like the instructor. Find one you do like.
  • I'm tired this morning. Exercise will wake you up.
  • I am really achy this morning. Exercise will reduce the pain.
  • I don't need it. Everyone needs it.
  • It won't help anyway because everything is all down hill anyway. It's only downhill if you do nothing about it.
  • I don't like being told what to do. Get over it and listen.
  • I have a doctor's appointment or luncheon engagement that day. Make your appointments at times other than your exercise times.
  • I've always done things my way. If I can't do that anymore, I don't want to do anything. Experience the joy of learning something new.
  • Leave me alone. Only if you insist. But I want you to be happy and healthy in your older years. I want to share the joy and miracle effects of exercise with you. And above all I want you to no longer have falls.
  • I DON'T WANT TO. That choice is ultimately up to you. Do you want to have a happy and active later life or do you want to hang out with all the others sharing their complaints? 

We are brought up to believe that being happy is the ultimate goal in life. It is even written into the United States Declaration of Independence. As a result, we tend to base decisions on whether or not we want to do it. This doesn't work out well regarding our health. You really shouldn't expect to want to exercise. At least not till you develop the routine. (Then you'll love it.) At first you have to exercise because you know it is an incredibly smart thing to do.

Be smart. Ultimately you will also end up being happy.
Ignore the reasons not to exercise
and do it anyway.

Click on the links below for more information about preventing falls.

Valuable fall prevention tips: Great ideas that really help.
What really causes falls? Things we do all the time that put us at risk.
Getting up after a fall: Getting off the floor more easily and safely.
Table of common falls: Simple instructions on how to prevent each.
Contributing factors for falls: What underlies most falls.
Preventing client falls: Especially for care-givers.
Parking Lots: One of the most dangerous places for seniors.