Yes you read that right. Falls account for the 10th Largest contribution of DISABILITY in the world.

 

In the last Blog, we talked about responsibility and empowerment between 2 groups of elderley care home residents. And those that were given responsibility to look after a Plant 🌱 had fewer falls and injuries.

 

This blog today is all about Falls and Prevention. 🛡

 

This is something we like to work on and advise most of our elderley patients whom may be at risk.

As FALLS, are where Fractures 🦴, loss of confidence, independence arise from. Not to mention longer stays in hospitals, chance of picking up infections there, embolisms and essentially the persons deterioration if not looked after properly.

 

YOU are likely to lose 20-40% of your previous Bone mass at age 65!! This is why Osteoporosis is regarded as the silent thief. This can accelerate at a 10X rate if your female and at menopause. Sorry ladies. 👵🏽 Osteoporosis is the loss of your bone mineral density, and thus makes you at higher risk of having a fracture sooner!!.

It alone causes 1.3 MILLION fractures per year!

 

Risk for developing Osteoporosis

-Fairs skinned

-Family history

-Small frame

-Smokers

-Cancer treatment in past

-Menopausal (especially early)

-Hysterectomy

-Low calcium in diet (Food intolerances and GUT health problems with malabsorption)

 

 

So what do we need to do ?

1.Reduce rate or chances of developing Osteoporosis

2.Reduce risk of falls

 

How do we it?

Speak to a local healthcare professional – including our Chiropractors on how to get started (especially if your in Pain as this complicates things)

Meet guideliens of 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise and 2X sessions of Strength and balance training per week. 22 minutes per day only!!! No better offer than that in the world if you ask us! 🥼

A study in the Journal of Orthopaedic translation – has concluded that resistance and JUMPING exercises were very effective for fracture prevention!!! 🦴 ⭐️

 

Get in the SUN☀️ – all BRITS are STRONGLY advised by ‘Public Health England’ to take Vitamin D supplements and should be told by our GP’s.

Getting some Sun for at least 15 minutes every day (or sunny days at least) with no lotion, between 11am and 3pm. After a strict 15 minutes get back inside or squirt some lotion on you.

Increase 💪🏼 muscle strength – get checked out for what SPECIFIC exercises you may need from one of our chiropractors. Increase ROM in hips knees and ankles.

Increase visual 👀 acuity – ask your optician 👓 on what exercises may be beneficial here. This can help reaction times.

Challenge and stimulate your balance. Balance exercises, swimming 🏊 , cycling 🚴 , dancing 💃🏻 , are all good 👍🏼 for prevention of problems. 🛡

 

 

Preventative Measures:

Credit: aarp.org

 

It is essential to protect your balance with some balance exercises:

try some of these with the link below 👇

View this post on Instagram

Here are THREE ways your body recovers from a loss of balance! 🔹Ankle strategy: this is usually the first line of defense. You typically use this strategy for small minor adjustments in where your body is moving in relation to your center. For example, your ankles will activate first to keep you balanced as you are reaching for a glass of water in front of you, and if it is a little further away, you will start to use your hips. An important tip is that your trunk should be stacked on your hips as you do this and you are ONLY moving forward and backwards through your ankles. This can be REALLY challenging for some people to isolate! 🔹Hip strategy: this usually kicks in after your body moves past the limit of what your ankles can control. You can definitely use your ankle and hip strategy at the same time. I find that in the older adult population, this is the most dominant strategy and first line of defense instead of the ankle strategy. This is something that needs to be addressed because we receive so much sensory information through our feet! And if we aren't utilizing our ankles to help with our balance, we are missing a very important link in the chain for optimal recovery of balance. 🔹Stepping strategy: this is usually the last strategy that comes in to play, and we use this when we experience a larger disruption in our balance that we can't recover with just our ankle and hip strategy, so we take a step to regain our balance. This can be used in all directions, forward, backward, and side to side. It's something we can all practice and get better at! For increased safety, you can do this in front of or besides a wall. The key is to let your body fall forward and then catch yourself by taking a step, instead of proactively taking a step. Let me know if you learned something new in the comments below, and if you would like to learn more about balance and fall prevention!

A post shared by Dr. Serena Liu | Geriatric PT (@resilientaging) on Sep 11, 2020 at 10:03pm PDT

Taken from the post above 👆

1. Ankle Strategy is important – this is usually the first line of defence. Your ankles will activate first to keep you balanced as you are reaching for a glass of water ahead of you. If its a little further away your reaching your HIPS will be used. The best way to do this exercise strategy is to keep torso steady and make sure you purely use your ankles to move back and forth.

2.Hip Strategy – people use this strategy before the ankle strategy. We need to change this as we get so much information about our balance from our feet.

3.Stepping Strategy – this is usually the last – we use this when we have a big disruption in balance. This can be practiced in all directions, but it is best to be performed in the corner of the room, so your surrounded by walls. It is important to let your body fall forward and then catch yourself by taking a step forward.

 

 

Hope you found the read interesting!