Fall Prevention Information & Tips

Falls are one of the most common problems geriatricians work on. In most older people, they are due to a combination of factors, including medications and sometimes blood pressure. It's key to identify a senior's fall contributors, in order to address or reverse them. Learn how to prevent falls and get the right evaluation through these articles.

7 Commonly Neglected Problems to Address for Healthier Aging:
The Healthy Aging Checklist Part 3

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

This is the third in a series of posts covering the Healthy Aging Checklist.

Again, the Healthy Aging Checklist summarizes the six fundamental activities I recommend when asked what to do to maintain the best possible health while aging. They are:

Promote brain health and emotional well-being.
Promote physical health.
Check for and address common aging health problems (such as falls, memory concerns, depression, incontinence, pain, isolation, polypharmacy).
Learn to optimize the management of any chronic conditions.
Get recommended preventive health services for older adults.
Address medical, legal, and financial advance care planning.

In this post, I’ll cover the third item: addressing commonly neglected aging health problems that routinely sabotage healthy aging.

These issues are sometimes referred to as geriatric syndromes. They affect health and quality of life, and although they happen more in people who are older or frailer, they affect countless people in their 60s and 70s as well.

Virtually all of these issues affect a older adults’s ability to socialize, be physically active, and take good care of himself or herself. So addressing these is key to enabling healthier aging.

Unfortunately, these issues routinely fall through the cracks of usual medical care. People often suffer from these problems for years without anyone taking effective action.

This may be because many people — doctors, older adults themselves, or family members — assume nothing can be done about these, and that they are just “part of getting old.”

Don’t believe that. We have studied these problems in geriatrics and most of the time, correctly evaluating and then managing these problems helps older adults and their families feel better, live better, and sometimes even live longer.

Remember, healthy aging is not just about preventing problems. It’s also about spotting them and addressing them before they get worse, or drag down the rest of your health and independence.

So for healthier aging, be proactive in checking for these oft-neglected problems.

And then remember: sub-optimal treatment of these problems is all too common. So you’ll need to be proactive about getting them correctly managed — which might mean either seeing a geriatrician (here’s how to find a geriatrician) or making sure your usual doctor is thinking like one.

Here’s what to look for, and how to learn more:

7 Common Problems to Check for and Address for Healthier Aging

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How to Help Doctors Notice What’s Wrong: The story of the missed pelvic fracture

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

Once upon a time, the ER missed a pelvic fracture in one of my older patients.

Actually, this kind of thing has happened more than once, and perhaps it’s happened to your family too.

As much as we’d like to believe that our older loved ones will get the right care when they are sick or injured, the truth is that our healthcare system is imperfect, and it’s fairly common for serious problems to be missed.

Unless, of course, a proactive family caregiver knows to help the doctor focus on what’s newly wrong.

Here is a true story about why geriatricians pay attention to “changes in function” and why it’s essential that you help doctors spot any changes in function or ability.

The case: unable to walk after a fall

My patient with Alzheimer’s dementia, 85-year-old Mr. C., sat down short of his easy chair at home and fell. Within minutes, his daughter found him on the floor. She helped him to the chair, and they watched some TV. But half an hour later, he was unable to get up again and walk. She took him to the emergency room for evaluation.

“I’m fine. Nothing hurts,” Mr. C. told the busy ER staff more than once. “I just want to go home.” X-rays of his hips and pelvis revealed nothing, and so — after an exam that probably lasted only a minute or two — he was discharged.

Back home, however, he still couldn’t walk. He still insisted nothing hurt. “I’m a tough old bird,” he told his daughter. Later that night, though, she noticed that he grimaced every time he rolled over in bed. She knew something was wrong. But what?

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How to Prevent Falls: 4 Proven Approaches To Ask Your Doctor About

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

Worried about falls in an older parent or relative? If so, do you know if their doctor has considered the most useful fall prevention approaches?

Fall risk can be reduced, but it generally takes some thought and effort. That’s in part because most older adults have multiple factors making them vulnerable to falls.

In a related article on this site, I’ve explained that best fall prevention plans involve identifying an older person’s particular risks — especially risks related to health conditions — and trying to counter those.

Get Your Free Fall Prevention Resource Guide! A handy short PDF to help you quickly find the key online resources mentioned in this article. Click here to download.

So for instance, if an older person has diabetes and is having frequent moments of low blood sugar (also known as hypoglycemia), then to reduce falls, addressing the hypoglycemia is as important, if not more, as starting an exercise program.

In other words, I always recommend that aging adults and families learn to tailor their fall prevention plans. You want to focus on what are the most important modifiable risk factors for that individual person.

That said, over the years I’ve noticed that there are four approaches that I find myself using over and over again, in almost all my patients who have had repeated falls.

These four approaches are used often by geriatricians, but much less often by busy primary care doctors. Unless, that is, a proactive family asks about them.

My Four Most-Used Fall Prevention Approaches

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8 Things to Have the Doctor Check After an Aging Person Falls

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

If you want to prevent dangerous falls in an aging adult, here’s one of the very best things you can do: be proactive about getting the right kind of medical assessment after a fall.

Why? There are three major reasons for this:

A fall can be a sign of a new and serious medical problem that needs treatment. For instance, an older person can be weakened and fall because of illnesses such as dehydration, or a serious urinary tract infection.
Older adults who have fallen are at higher risk for a future fall. Although it’s a good idea for any older person to be proactive about identifying and reducing fall risk factors, it’s vital to do this well after a fall.
Busy doctors may not be thorough unless caregivers are proactive about asking questions. Most doctors have the best intentions, but studies have shown that older patients often don’t get recommended care. By being politely proactive, you can make sure that certain things aren’t overlooked (such as medications that worsen balance).

All too often, a medical visit after a fall is mainly about addressing any injuries that the older person may have suffered.

Obviously, this is very important; one doesn’t want to miss a fracture or other serious injury in an older person.

However, if you want to help prevent future falls, it’s also important to make sure the doctors have checked on all the things that could have contributed to the fall.

This is really key to preventing falls in an aging adult. Even if you’re pretty sure your loved one just tripped and stumbled, a good evaluation can uncover issues that made those trips and stumbles more likely.

In this article, I’ll list eight key items that you can make sure the doctors check on, after an older person falls. This will help you make sure your loved one has had a thorough work-up, and can reduce the chance of future serious falls.

This list is partly based on the American Geriatrics Society’s Clinical Practice Guidelines on Preventing Falls.

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Preventing Falls: 10 Types of Medications to Review if You’re Concerned About Falling

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

Have you been concerned about falls for yourself, or for an aging parent?

If so, do you know if any of your medications might be increasing your risk for falls?

In its Stay Independent brochure, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends older adults do the following four things to prevent falls:

Ask your doctor or pharmacist to review your medicines.
Begin an exercise program to improve leg strength and balance.
Get annual eye check-ups and update your glasses.
Make your home safer.

In this article, we’ll focus on medications for three reasons:

Medications are among the most common causes of increased fall risk in older people.
Medications are usually among the easiest risk factors to change, when it comes to falls in older adults.
Medication-based risks are often missed by busy regular doctors. Older adults and family caregivers can make a big difference by being proactive in this area.

I want you to understand just what types of medications you and your doctors should be looking for, when you address medication review as part of fall prevention. This article will also explain exactly what to do, once you’ve identified any medications that are associated with falls.

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Why Older People Fall & How to Reduce Fall Risk

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

Why do aging adults fall? To be honest, people don’t usually ask me this.

Instead, they want to know things like “How do I keep my mother from falling?” or “What should I do? My grandfather’s been falling.”

After all, falls are a scary thing. Most people know that falls are dangerous for older adults.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reports that one in five falls causes a serious injury such as a broken bone or head injury. Fear of falling can also seriously affect an aging adult’s quality of life and sadly, can keep a person from being active and thriving.

So, many older adults and family caregivers are interested in fall prevention because the risks are so great. (According to Google, “balance exercises for seniors” is a popular search query; I do like balance exercises in aging, especially when combined with strength training and other exercises.)

And the good news is that although it’s not possible to prevent all falls, it almost always IS possible to take actions that will reduce the chance of a bad fall.

And it’s easier to take action once we understand more about why an older person has fallen.

If you want to learn more, you’re in the right place. In this article, I’ll cover:

How understanding why aging adults fall can help you keep an older parent — or yourself — safer,
Why personalized fall prevention plans work better than relying on general fall prevention tips,
The four-step process I use to help older adults prevent falls,
A practical example showing you how to use these steps to avoid falls yourself.

First, understand why older people fall

There are many reasons that aging adults fall. Most older people will be falling due to their own unique combination of reasons.

So how, exactly, should YOU go about reducing fall risk?

Now, you can — and should — try to implement the general tips that are often listed in most fall prevention resources: exercise, medication review with the doctor, vision checks, and home safety reviews.

But if you really want to help an older loved one avoid falls, I recommend you learn to better understand why he or she, in particular, might fall.

Why? Because when you understand the specific reasons an older person may be falling, you’ll then be able to:

Identify which fall prevention strategies are most likely to help the person you worry about,
Recognize risky situations, and take steps to avoid them,
Know which medical conditions — and which medications — to ask your doctors to look into,
Understand what may have caused a specific fall, which can help you avoid future falls.

In other words, learning why older people fall means that you’ll be able to figure out why YOUR older relative is likely to fall — and take steps to help them.

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Blood pressure medications linked to serious falls: What you can do

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

Have you had any concerns about an older person falling, or being at risk for a broken hip?

A new clinical research study relevant to millions of older adults was just featured in the news.

The study, completed by a team of geriatrics researchers at Yale, found that in older adults aged 70 or older, taking blood pressure medication was linked to a higher risk of serious falls. (Serious falls as in, falls that caused an ER visit for a fracture, a dislocated joint, or a brain bleed. Serious stuff indeed!)

So, if the person you care for has a diagnosis of hypertension, and if you’ve had any concerns regarding falls or near-falls, these study results should be of interest to you.

In this post, I’ll review the key results of this study. Then I’ll tell you what I think are the most important practical take-aways for family caregivers.

This post will also include some practical tips to help you minimize the risk of your loved one experiencing a serious fall.

[Read more…]

Fall Prevention Information & Tips

7 Common Problems to Check for and Address for Healthier Aging

The case: unable to walk after a fall

My Four Most-Used Fall Prevention Approaches

First, understand why older people fall

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