At Bryan outpatient rehabilitation, we have the skilled physical therapists and advanced technology to help improve your balance in order to prevent future falls. Our evaluation begins with a detailed history and clinical screening to determine what specific tests are appropriate for your condition.
Listen as Laura Corbridge, physical therapist at Bryan Health, discusses how best to help you reduce the risk and prevent falls.
How to Prevent Falls and the Injuries They Cause
Featured Speaker:
Laura Corbridge, Bryan physical therapist
Laura Corbridge is a physical therapist at Bryan Health. Transcription:
How to Prevent Falls and the Injuries They Cause
Melanie Cole (Host): According to the American College of Sports Medicine, approximately one in three older adults falls each year. As the number of older adults increases rapidly over the next decade, the annual cost for fall-related injuries is expected to skyrocket. Although many falls don’t result in severe physical injuries, a fall or near fall can often produce a psychological fear of falling. This contributes to a self-imposed decrease in activity followed by functional declines and a greater risk for falls. My guest, today is Laura Corbridge. She’s a physical therapist at Bryan Health. Welcome to the show, Laura. Why is balance so important in not only for older adults but when it comes to preventing falls?
Laura Corbridge (Guest): Yes, this is such an important topic for everyone to be aware of because like you mentioned, it’s estimated that at least one out of four community-dwelling older adults will fall each year. This is actually underestimated because these are actually the ones that are reported to physicians and one out of those falls will cause a serious injury. It’s actually shown that trauma is the leading cause of ER visits and at Bryan, there were greater than 750 visits related to falls in the year of 2015. This is the primary cause whereas the next cause was motor vehicle crashes, which were reported just under 400.
Falls are so important for everybody to be aware of because they can cause significant injury. It’s actually the leading cause of traumatic brain injury for people over the age of 75. People who fall who break a hip, 95 percent of those is related to a fall. It’s shown that people who have a hip fracture, they can have a mortality up to 40 percent and over 50 percent of those people can’t return to home. We want to be able to get out there and do some further education for people about preventing falls, so they’re not in that situation, so they continue to lead a healthy and happy life.
Melanie: So Laura, people want to know what they can do and does balance training work? You’re working proprioception, and you're explaining to them this mind-food connection, how do you do that as a physical therapist? What is it you tell them?
Laura: Well there’s a lot of different things that can cause falls. There’s things that within the internal part of your body that can set you up to have good balance or bad balance. One of those things is having appropriate strength and flexibility, so we want to make sure that people have good motion in their ankles and knees and hips and they have good strength to support that movement as well as being able to look at – to see if they have that knowledge of where their feet are in space to be able to sense that movement underneath them and anything that might come their way.
Another thing is looking at people and making sure they have good vision, to make sure they can use their vision because vision is so important for balance, as well as being able to have good conversations with their physician to see whether or not they need medication management because a lot of medications can have side-effects of dizziness because of blood pressure or other kinds of issues and that’s a very important conversation to have with the physician.
One of the things we also talk about with people is being aware of their feet – of their sensory – if they have any numbness or tingling, to making sure that they are monitoring these. Do they have any sores on their feet or just to be aware of that sensation or lack of sensation can really affect someone’s balance. Those are all things that we talk to people about, about things that they can look at in their own body to see whether or not that can change how they react in their balance situation.
Melanie: What about shoes, Laura, because certainly, we’ve seen people wearing -- in the older population people wearing sensible shoes, but even younger women wearing high shoes have that propensity to fall and really bust up an ankle or a knee off a curb because they’re in high shoes. What do you tell people about shoes and making sure that that is part of that whole picture?
Laura: Looking at shoes we have to make sure our feet give us the information we need to process for our balance. Our feet use from our toes to our heels, and when we’re wearing shoes that have a high heel, we don’t have as much information that’s given to us through our toes so we have less information given and so we have less to work on when we have situation where a fall might be imminent. Talking to people if they have other risk factors, such as vision or strength or flexibility issues, looking at that shoe support can really increase someone’s awareness of where their feet are in space, being able to sense that correction of balance if there was something that would come up that they would need to catch themselves quickly.
Melanie: How can they practice at home? Does standing on one leg, standing in a doorway, or holding onto a chair, do any of these kinds of things helps with balance and help us to get better and can you practice? Can balance training actually carry over to help you with better balance?
Laura: Yes, there’s a lot of things that can affect your balance and there are lots of different exercises out there that actually can change how we use our balance system to improve our sense of control. Many of these can be standing on one leg, standing with closing your eyes. The hard thing is that everyone has different systems that they use first. We tend to use our vision first, and then we tend to use our legs and our sensory components in our muscles, and then we tend to use our brain and our vestibular system. We have three systems we typically use, and everybody tends to use one more than the other. It’s based on individual things so there’s some generalize exercises that I can have people do. Just standing, you can have somebody stand in a corner and close their eyes if they’re in a corner with a chair in front of them, then they’re safe because if they would try to stand in the middle of a room and close their eyes, if they don’t have those other systems to correct, I sure don’t want them to have a fall and actually cause a fall because the balance exercises we’re doing. A lot of these exercises have a great place for people, but we want to make sure they have an opportunity to practice these in a safe environment as well.
Melanie: So tell us a little bit about the Bryan Center for Dizziness and Balance.
Laura: Yes, we have the Bryan Center for Dizziness and Balance, and we have two therapists that have greater than 15 years of experience each. We specialize in treatments for people with balance and fall prevention, specifically with people with neurological injuries or potential balance concerns. We also have – both of us are specially trained in vestibular practices, so people who have specific problems with their vestibular system whether or not it’s from the inner ear or from some sort of neurological injury, we both have specialty training, so we work together as a team, and we’re able to provide a comprehensive assessment of what people need to facilitate their balance and decrease their falls.
Melanie: So wrap it up for us, with your best advice for balance, training and really preventing falls because it’s more important now than ever, so explain to the listeners what you want them to know and what you would like them to do at home to really practice their balance?
Laura: The biggest thing I tell people is we have to keep moving because when we don’t move, we tend to not use those systems that are so important for our balance. If we don’t have that movement – that means that our strength, our flexibility, and our confidence all decrease. When we don’t move we actually increase our risk of balance problems, so if somebody is having that fear of movement then I really encourage you to talk with your physician and see if you need a little be more one-on-one information and an assessment to find out why you’re not moving and if there’s some certain things that we can address whether or not it’s strength, balance, or flexibility, to encourage that movement because that movement is going to help you be able to stay on your feet and stay out of the Emergency Room and stay in your home setting. There are lots of other education things that we can have people to do with community programs. All of those things can help someone be able to maintain their balance and decrease their risk of falls.
Melanie: Thank you, so much, Laura, for being with us today, that’s great information. You’re listening to Bryan Health Radio, and if you’d like to learn more about the Byran Center for Dizziness and Balance, you can go to bryanhealth.org/balance, that’s bryanhealth.org/balance, or you can call 402-481-9445, that’s 402-481-9445. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks, so much, for listening.
How to Prevent Falls and the Injuries They Cause
Melanie Cole (Host): According to the American College of Sports Medicine, approximately one in three older adults falls each year. As the number of older adults increases rapidly over the next decade, the annual cost for fall-related injuries is expected to skyrocket. Although many falls don’t result in severe physical injuries, a fall or near fall can often produce a psychological fear of falling. This contributes to a self-imposed decrease in activity followed by functional declines and a greater risk for falls. My guest, today is Laura Corbridge. She’s a physical therapist at Bryan Health. Welcome to the show, Laura. Why is balance so important in not only for older adults but when it comes to preventing falls?
Laura Corbridge (Guest): Yes, this is such an important topic for everyone to be aware of because like you mentioned, it’s estimated that at least one out of four community-dwelling older adults will fall each year. This is actually underestimated because these are actually the ones that are reported to physicians and one out of those falls will cause a serious injury. It’s actually shown that trauma is the leading cause of ER visits and at Bryan, there were greater than 750 visits related to falls in the year of 2015. This is the primary cause whereas the next cause was motor vehicle crashes, which were reported just under 400.
Falls are so important for everybody to be aware of because they can cause significant injury. It’s actually the leading cause of traumatic brain injury for people over the age of 75. People who fall who break a hip, 95 percent of those is related to a fall. It’s shown that people who have a hip fracture, they can have a mortality up to 40 percent and over 50 percent of those people can’t return to home. We want to be able to get out there and do some further education for people about preventing falls, so they’re not in that situation, so they continue to lead a healthy and happy life.
Melanie: So Laura, people want to know what they can do and does balance training work? You’re working proprioception, and you're explaining to them this mind-food connection, how do you do that as a physical therapist? What is it you tell them?
Laura: Well there’s a lot of different things that can cause falls. There’s things that within the internal part of your body that can set you up to have good balance or bad balance. One of those things is having appropriate strength and flexibility, so we want to make sure that people have good motion in their ankles and knees and hips and they have good strength to support that movement as well as being able to look at – to see if they have that knowledge of where their feet are in space to be able to sense that movement underneath them and anything that might come their way.
Another thing is looking at people and making sure they have good vision, to make sure they can use their vision because vision is so important for balance, as well as being able to have good conversations with their physician to see whether or not they need medication management because a lot of medications can have side-effects of dizziness because of blood pressure or other kinds of issues and that’s a very important conversation to have with the physician.
One of the things we also talk about with people is being aware of their feet – of their sensory – if they have any numbness or tingling, to making sure that they are monitoring these. Do they have any sores on their feet or just to be aware of that sensation or lack of sensation can really affect someone’s balance. Those are all things that we talk to people about, about things that they can look at in their own body to see whether or not that can change how they react in their balance situation.
Melanie: What about shoes, Laura, because certainly, we’ve seen people wearing -- in the older population people wearing sensible shoes, but even younger women wearing high shoes have that propensity to fall and really bust up an ankle or a knee off a curb because they’re in high shoes. What do you tell people about shoes and making sure that that is part of that whole picture?
Laura: Looking at shoes we have to make sure our feet give us the information we need to process for our balance. Our feet use from our toes to our heels, and when we’re wearing shoes that have a high heel, we don’t have as much information that’s given to us through our toes so we have less information given and so we have less to work on when we have situation where a fall might be imminent. Talking to people if they have other risk factors, such as vision or strength or flexibility issues, looking at that shoe support can really increase someone’s awareness of where their feet are in space, being able to sense that correction of balance if there was something that would come up that they would need to catch themselves quickly.
Melanie: How can they practice at home? Does standing on one leg, standing in a doorway, or holding onto a chair, do any of these kinds of things helps with balance and help us to get better and can you practice? Can balance training actually carry over to help you with better balance?
Laura: Yes, there’s a lot of things that can affect your balance and there are lots of different exercises out there that actually can change how we use our balance system to improve our sense of control. Many of these can be standing on one leg, standing with closing your eyes. The hard thing is that everyone has different systems that they use first. We tend to use our vision first, and then we tend to use our legs and our sensory components in our muscles, and then we tend to use our brain and our vestibular system. We have three systems we typically use, and everybody tends to use one more than the other. It’s based on individual things so there’s some generalize exercises that I can have people do. Just standing, you can have somebody stand in a corner and close their eyes if they’re in a corner with a chair in front of them, then they’re safe because if they would try to stand in the middle of a room and close their eyes, if they don’t have those other systems to correct, I sure don’t want them to have a fall and actually cause a fall because the balance exercises we’re doing. A lot of these exercises have a great place for people, but we want to make sure they have an opportunity to practice these in a safe environment as well.
Melanie: So tell us a little bit about the Bryan Center for Dizziness and Balance.
Laura: Yes, we have the Bryan Center for Dizziness and Balance, and we have two therapists that have greater than 15 years of experience each. We specialize in treatments for people with balance and fall prevention, specifically with people with neurological injuries or potential balance concerns. We also have – both of us are specially trained in vestibular practices, so people who have specific problems with their vestibular system whether or not it’s from the inner ear or from some sort of neurological injury, we both have specialty training, so we work together as a team, and we’re able to provide a comprehensive assessment of what people need to facilitate their balance and decrease their falls.
Melanie: So wrap it up for us, with your best advice for balance, training and really preventing falls because it’s more important now than ever, so explain to the listeners what you want them to know and what you would like them to do at home to really practice their balance?
Laura: The biggest thing I tell people is we have to keep moving because when we don’t move, we tend to not use those systems that are so important for our balance. If we don’t have that movement – that means that our strength, our flexibility, and our confidence all decrease. When we don’t move we actually increase our risk of balance problems, so if somebody is having that fear of movement then I really encourage you to talk with your physician and see if you need a little be more one-on-one information and an assessment to find out why you’re not moving and if there’s some certain things that we can address whether or not it’s strength, balance, or flexibility, to encourage that movement because that movement is going to help you be able to stay on your feet and stay out of the Emergency Room and stay in your home setting. There are lots of other education things that we can have people to do with community programs. All of those things can help someone be able to maintain their balance and decrease their risk of falls.
Melanie: Thank you, so much, Laura, for being with us today, that’s great information. You’re listening to Bryan Health Radio, and if you’d like to learn more about the Byran Center for Dizziness and Balance, you can go to bryanhealth.org/balance, that’s bryanhealth.org/balance, or you can call 402-481-9445, that’s 402-481-9445. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks, so much, for listening.