Maggie McKay (Host): Believe it or not, finding ways to prevent falls and improve your balance can actually be fun. Today, we're going to talk with Dr. Georgia Corner, Doctor of Physical Therapy. She's going to discuss taking your balance brain in for a tuneup. Welcome to Stoughton Health Talk, a podcast from Stoughton Health. I'm your host, Maggie McKay. Thank you so much for being here today, Dr. Corner.

Georgia Corner, Doctor of Physical Therapy: My pleasure.

Host: First of all, how do falls affect individuals?

Georgia Corner, Doctor of Physical Therapy: Well, especially for older individuals, they actually can lead to death. So, they actually are a really big issue. And in Wisconsin, Wisconsin leads the nation in the rate of death by fall. So, it can be very serious and that doesn't even count the falls that are bruising your bones or bruising your ego. So.

Host: Ooh, what do you see from your vantage point, your expertise as the impact of falls in general?

Georgia Corner, Doctor of Physical Therapy: Well, so I work at a hospital, in Madison, and there's a significant number of people who come into the hospital, especially through the emergency department, who are there because they've fallen. And I would say that it's not unusual for people's balance to be off if they get sick. But, you know, if they're going along really well and they get sick and they kind of get down to here, that's one thing.

But if their balance is already pretty bad and they get sick and they dip below that injurious fall line, then they definitely could have some pretty bad effects.

Host: And how do you approach fall prevention in your practice?

Georgia Corner, Doctor of Physical Therapy: Well, I'm a physical therapist. And so there are many ways that you can address impaired balance and the way that I am the most well versed in is using physical activity to actually improve or maintain your balance. Within my practice every day that I almost always am working on balance exercises with patients who are in the hospital.

And in addition, I also work with the Dane County Safe Communities Falls Prevention Task Force. And through them, I've been helping to create a list of physical activity classes that can help with balance. And it's not all just exercise or balance classes. Sometimes it's kind of things that are more fun, like Ballroom Basics for Balance.

And then I also teach Ballroom Basics for Balance. So I'm involved in, teaching physical activity classes that can help people with their balance. And then in my clinical work, I'm also working on balance quite a bit.

Host: So, earlier I mentioned it can be fun. So, how exactly does dance improve balance?

Georgia Corner, Doctor of Physical Therapy: I came to being a physical therapist from being a dancer and a dance teacher. And as I went through my physical training, physical therapy training, I realized that most of what I was learning, much of what I was learning in physical therapy actually was also embedded into good dance classes where you're really learning how to move your body well.

I think that dance has a lot of elements in it that are really helpful and especially if it's a dance class where the teacher is trying to teach you to move better. And the dynamic balance aspect of it, the fact that you're moving in different directions, you're not just walking straight ahead, but you're moving side to side, or maybe backwards, or on an angle, or maybe you're turning, that's really effective, a very effective part of dance classes.

And also is present in things like martial arts, like Aikido or Tai Chi. And then, and those are also enjoyable activities. It's not just doing exercises, right? Of course, the other fun thing about dance is you get to do that to music. And that has a hidden benefit, which is that when we are having to move to music, like stay on a musical pulse, we're actually having to move outside our most comfortable tempo, because we all naturally have our tempo that we want to move in, and when we're trying to move to music, we have to adjust that. And so, that's a really, very powerful balance enhancing aspect of dance classes. And then finally, of course, it's fun and you have some socialization. And actually, the other piece is that we're also working on dual tasking in dance classes.

So dual tasking is the ability to do two things at once, walk and chew gum, right? Or walk and think, which is actually a lot more common of a balance challenge, right? If our balance is impaired, anytime we add something on top of that, like having to have a phone conversation while you're walking on uneven grass, that makes it a lot more difficult to walk on uneven grass because you have to focus on your conversation while you're walking on the uneven grass.

Dance includes a lot of that dual tasking. You have to be able to remember a sequence or think about what you're doing. Or if you're doing ballroom dancing, you're responding to a partner. You're trying to think about the music. So there's, there, those aspects of dance are really helpful. And I would say that those hopeful aspects are also present in a lot of other kinds of physical activities, that aren't maybe called a balance class. So.

Host: Mm hmm. Okay, so let's say somebody's never really been physically active. They've never really danced before. They have two left feet. Where would they begin and where would they find classes or programs?

Georgia Corner, Doctor of Physical Therapy: I will say that one, a really excellent place to go is the Dane County Safe Communities Falls Prevention website. So, Dane County Safe Communities has a website and they are addressing several different public health concerns in Dane County. One of them is falls prevention.

And on that website, we are collating a list that has a multitude of physical activities that you can do that are balance enhancing. And we vetted those activities and we know that those classes contain all of the elements that you need to work on in order to improve your balance.

Host: That's great.

Georgia Corner, Doctor of Physical Therapy: Yeah, it's great.

Host: What if someone walks every day? Does that count as effective activity to help our so called balance brains?

Georgia Corner, Doctor of Physical Therapy: Unfortunately, it does not. Walking is great physical exercise. It's good for your heart and your lungs, and it's good for your muscles, right? But for most of us, we tend to stay in our comfort zone when we're walking. You know, you might go a little faster than, you know, if you're trying to push things a bit, but mostly, as far as the balance challenge of walking goes, we're just doing what we're most comfortable with.

So it's really a, if you are out for a walk, one easy way that you can give yourself some balance challenges is to work in a couple of different directions of movement. So for example, if you're walking down the sidewalk and you turn sideways and you did some sidestepping, And then turn the other way and did some side stepping; that would give you some balance challenge that's not part of regular walking. Or you could do something where you're walking extra slow or doing two long steps, one short step. So there's some things that you can do while you're walking that can improve, but just walking on its own has been studied and it does not, in fact, improve our balance.

Host: But it is good for our heart, right?

Georgia Corner, Doctor of Physical Therapy: Yes. No, it's great activity. And I'm not saying, like, definitely that's not, it's,

Host: Totally.

Georgia Corner, Doctor of Physical Therapy: a great walk is a great thing to do. So I'm not saying that it's a bad activity at all, but I am saying that if you truly want to sharpen up your balance and tune it up, or if you want to improve it, you've got to include something a little more in your walk. Does that make sense? Take your walk, include a little bit of challenge in there.

Host: Yes. So in closing, Dr. Corner, is there anything else you'd like to add that you think would be helpful for people to know?

Georgia Corner, Doctor of Physical Therapy: Well, I think of balance as being kind of like calibrating a car. You know, there's a lot of different pieces to balance. There's how good are your eyes, how good are your ears, how good is your sensation, how strong are your muscles, how reactive are your muscles. There's a lot of different pieces. Your brain's got to put it all together.

So that you don't fall over. And just like a car, if one piece changes, then the brain, if the brain doesn't recalibrate, then you are, your balance is going to get worse. There's no doubt about it. But if you can kind of recalibrate it every day by doing some physical activities that challenge your balance, you can keep it sharp.

Host: All right. Well, thank you so much. This has been so informative and helpful. We really appreciate your time today.

Georgia Corner, Doctor of Physical Therapy: Yeah, of course.

Host: Again, that's Dr. Corner. For more information on preventing falls, please visit safercommunity.net/falls-prevention. If you're interested in exploring a wider range of health related podcasts, check out the Stoughton Health Podcast Library at stoughtonhealth.com. Thank you for listening. I'm Maggie McKay. This is Stoughton Health Talk, a podcast from Stoughton Health.