Fall Prevention

As we prepare to promote public awareness on how to prevent falls among adults over 65, my homework assignment has suddenly become more than collecting statistical data.

My sister, the co-captain of her high school cheer leading team, the girl who stepped onto the track and caused some boys on the track team to go sit down because they feared she might out run them, is a year and two weeks shy of the milestone. She recently took a tumble on her front porch steps and suffered fractured bones and a dislocated right ankle. Treated and released, she is recovering comfortably.

About a year ago, our aunt, then 85, took a similar tumble down a short flight of back porch steps.
Aunt Eula, a retired award winning elementary school principle, sometimes thinks she is still running it...or that she should be.
She can still wear her skirts hemmed awfully close to the knee while wearing heels. She has over ruled medical authority on taking meds and the family has gently suggested that because she can...is not a reason why she should.

The tumble is a case in point.
A new front door to her home was installed to replace the old which had been placed on the rear porch to be removed later.

Ms, aunt Eula, the boss, all five feet nothing and maybe 135 pounds, a tomboy in her youth, could not wait for the door to be removed. So....!

Fortunately, a passerby heard her cries for help. Aunt Eula, fractures to her wrist, waited patiently on the ground until fire and police arrived to remove the door from her body, made to look even smaller and more frail under that big old wooden door.

We are a blessed family. We will smile about these things at Thanks Giving dinner but for many older adults and their families, falls are no smiling matter.

Each day, 10,000 Baby Boomers will turn 65. This will go on for the next 19 years. Over the course of their remaining years, statistics show that a third will fall. Of  those who do, a significant number will suffer debilitating, even fatal injuries.
Of those who recover, many will suffer a fear of falling which in turn can lead to limiting the very activities that can prevent falls or reduce the seriousness of an injury due to a fall.
In 2007, the last year for figures, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, reported that over 18,000 older adults died from unintentionally falls.

Fall Prevention Awareness activities, set for September 23, the first of autumn, is to draw attention to the dangers of falling. It is sponsored by the Center for Healthy Aging in cooperation with the National Council on Aging.

You have to be functionally fit to avoid hard work

I've said on many occasions that older adults should concentrate on functional fitness. Meaning that at the bare minimum, we have to be fit enough to do the things we are expected to do on any given day. A little exercise, now and then, makes work easier.
One of my clients, Charles, 62, has improved his fitness from last year when he had trouble cutting his grass to where he now cuts his lawn and knocks off his mom's yard too.

Hugh, also 62, is a professional gardener. A hip injury a few years ago slowed him. Over the winter, he decided to do something about his physical fitness. His workouts included working on skills consisted with gardening.  To duplicate moving bags of soil, fertilizer and mulch, Hugh corrected some bad habits picked over the years by concentrating on using his legs to lift 20 pound dumbbells.  
He also worked on endurance, as it fits his work, by walking rapidly over short distances from one point in the gym to another.
He had to make decisions on the go, as on his job, by having to change directions on these short walk sprints. Changing directions on the move helps improves balance.
Recently, Hugh said he has resumed some duties that he had passed off to a subordinate.

Don, a friend, 70 plus, wanted a tree removed from his back yard. His baby girl was to be married. The wedding was to be in the back yard. The tree was in the way. Don, retired, likes to fiddle-faddle but in a nice way. After years of hard work, he's earned the right to faddle but in doing so, Don is in surprisingly good shape.
Two old guys took a twenty inch chain saw to the tree. Cut it into fire place logs. Stacked them and cleaned up the mess. Took three days, but we got it done. We celebrated with a beer and called it a day. Forty- eight hours later, a flawless affair was enjoyed by all.
 
A few days ago, Bob, another friend who owns a home remodeling company, stopped by to help hang a repaired window and it's frame over the garage door. 
About a story and a half up, the decision was to use scaffolding from which we could safely work.
Absolutely nothing involved hard work. Pulling the scaffolding from Bob's truck and assembling it was as close as we got to heavy lifting.
As the early morning sun approached the ten o'clock sky, there was a fair amount of lifting, holding in place, manipulating this and that and climbing onto and off the scaffold. 
Both Bob and I are 66, so there was some walking back and forth because we forgot something.
Bob's a funny guy and he paces himself by telling stories. So there were spells of hardy laughter. Swapping tales.
Laughing takes energy. All of this took energy. Not hard work energy but 90 minutes of continuos movement energy. Bending...twisting. 
After getting the window in place, we repaired and painted the window trim and completed the job by re-adjusting the electrical line that supplies power to the garage from the house. 
We put up scaffolding. We took down scaffolding. All tools put back in place. Swept  
up. Job completed. Paid Bob. Tall glass of cool water. Overstuffed chair. ZZZZ, continuos movement ends.