Maggie McKay: When you're a child, you fall a lot, dust yourself off and move on. But when you get older, a simple fall can have a lot of serious consequences, some even ending in casts or surgery. Welcome, I'm your host, Maggie McKay. Our guest today is Dr. Becky Steffens, a physical therapist at Jefferson Healthcare to talk about ways to prevent and reduce your risk of falls. Thank you so much for being here, Becky.

Dr. Becky Steffers: Thanks for having me.

Maggie McKay: I am so interested to hear about these tips for preventing falls because I'm a natural gluts, and if there's the tiniest crack in the sidewalk, I will find it and trip over it and fall every time. So for starters, how does our body balance itself?

Dr. Becky Steffers: Yeah, I think you're right. Everybody loses their balance. So how do we regain it? In the physical therapy world? I like to look at three main things. It's obviously very complicated, but I like to look at a system called your somatosensory, which is kind of the feedback, the input you get from your body. So knowing where you're at in space your vision also helps. And then your vestibular system, which is your inner ear. All three of those systems work together to help us maintain our balance.

Sometimes one system is working more than the other, so a good example of that is at night when we can't rely on our vision quite as much, we need our vestibular system and our somato sensory system to working a little bit more to help us maintain our balance. So it will just depend on our situation and what you're doing as to what system needs to be working the hardest.

Maggie McKay: And you mentioned your inner ear for people with vertigo or Parkinson's, can that throw off your balance?

Dr. Becky Steffers: Yeah, absolutely. That inner ear system can be complicated. Sometimes we get an acute sense of vertigo, which physical therapy can absolutely help with. If you turn over in bed and the room just spins, that's a little bit more of an acute incident. It's kind of easily treated. It's one of the more easy, easier symptoms to treat in physical therapy. Something like Parkinson's can be a little bit harder to treat. They do tend to fall quite frequently, so we're working on a lot of different strategies to help them maintain their balance, not fall as much, and really working on the whole body in that situation.

Maggie McKay: And Dr. Steffens, why is maintaining balance so important and how do we do it?

Dr. Becky Steffers: I mean, I think, like we said, we all fall. It's kind of part of life, but I think the best thing we can do is to try to work on strategies to prevent that. If so, one of the first lines of defense is, we call it an ankle strategy. So kind of as you're swaying on your ankles, can you sway and keep your balance? Next, we use our hips, so making sure we have strength in our hips and being able to pull ourselves back to midline. And the final thing we work on is that stepping strategy. If you lose your balance, your center of gravity sways too much that you need to take that step and react. Those can all be breakdowns in the system and things that we can practice and work on.

Maggie McKay: And if you do fall, how can physical therapy help?

Dr. Becky Steffers: Well, we're gonna work on all those things. We're gonna work on making sure you're strong enough, you're to have the strength to maintain your balance, and just to be able to get back on the off the floor if you do fall. We're gonna try to identify those problem areas. Is it a certain system that's breaking down? Is it that you can't step fast enough and we're basically gonna practice those and try to set it up for real life so that you're ready to go out and enjoy your life and do what you want to do.

Maggie McKay: So if you fall and feel achy, but you say, oh, I'm okay, and you put ice or heat on it and it persists, when would it be appropriate to seek intervention?

Dr. Becky Steffers: Yeah, I usually like to wait one to two weeks, sometimes, yeah, absolutely fall. That acute phase of healing usually happens within the first week. So give it a day, couple weeks, see if it kind of goes away on its own. If you're still having issues after that, I would reach out for help. Certainly if you're falling. Multiple times a day or once a day, that would be assigned a call for help and get in to see someone.

Maggie McKay: Dr. Steffens, when it comes to maintaining balance, are there tools or equipment that we can use at home to stay safe?

Dr. Becky Steffers: Yeah, absolutely. If you feel like you just can't keep your balance yourself, we have lots of assisted devices out there. There are canes and crutches and walkers of all shapes and sizes. That can all be helpful to you. You can make some simple changes around your home. Simple things like making sure you don't have throw rugs to trip over using night lights at night so you can use that vision. Putting handrails on stairs or in the bathroom. Bathrooms are one of the most dangerous places. Lots of hard surfaces.

So making sure you have something to hold onto. The CDC has a really good checklist that I often refer people to on their website that just kind of goes through a home safety checklist that you can work through to make sure there's any simple changes you can make to your house.

Maggie McKay: Those are all great ideas. Very useful. I know some elderly friends take balance classes to stay ahead of the injuries. Is that a good idea?

Dr. Becky Steffers: I think that's great. I think prevention goes a long, long ways. Walking daily, taking some exercise classes a couple times a week is great practice and it's enjoyable. You can go see your friends and I'll get a little bit stronger and balance better together.

Maggie McKay: That's so true. It's always good to have other people pushing you. Right? Because if you it on your own, you might not show up.

Dr. Becky Steffers: Yeah, exactly. That motivation is so key and that's the hard part for everybody, is building that habit and maintaining it so that you can stay healthy and as independent for as long as you can.

Maggie McKay: Right Dr. Steffens, what would you like people to take away from this in closing?

Dr. Becky Steffers: I think sometimes we just assume balance is gonna get worse as we age, and there is some truth to that, but I do hope that if you're having a lot of trouble that you reach out, ask for help, we can improve it. It can get better, and we don't just have to accept the dreaded aging process.

Maggie McKay: This has been such helpful information. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise.

Dr. Becky Steffers: It's my pleasure. Thank you.

Maggie McKay: If you'd like to find out more, links to fall prevention information can be found on our website, jeffersonhealthcare.org. In the patient resources section on the rehabilitation page. If you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels. Thank you for listening. I'm Maggie McKay. Be well.