I've had three falls in the last year, broke an ankle, rib and arm.  I hope
that is all I'll have!

ugh, this is so scary to me because i am coming close to falling at
least once a week during the last year. I know the reason--my left
foot and ankle are totally screwed up from RA.  :)  and getting
screwier all the time. most of the joints are "fused but in the wrong
position" says my foot/ankle doc. i walk with a limp, and just like it
says in the article, when i lose balance, i don't have the ability to
recover because my foot and ankle don't work properly. i've taken up
the throw rugs, but i don't know what else to do. i just try to be
very very careful.

diane, anxiously biting her nails

I have a friend who falls a lot. She's only in her 50s but she has
neuropathy from her diabetes. She's fallen several times and injured herself
most of those times. She wants to get a Life Alert (she lives alone) but her
sister says since she has a phone why does she need a Life Alert. Well,
maybe because you don't necessarily fall where you can reach the phone?

My 80+ year old neighbor (nobody knew her exact age 'cause she was cagey
about it) died of complications from a fall. She fell down her stairs in the
middle of the night and I didn't hear anything (the landing was away from
our common wall). She lay there for twelve hours until I discovered her.
She was pretty well busted up. She only lived for a couple of days.

Nell

not just older people.  i've been falling, roughly once a week, since i was
23.  my left foot is awkwardly turned outwards, caught on everything (seemed
like even a potato chip could trip me--slight exaggeration<g>), due to the
initial injuries from that car wreck back then.  however, after this last
fall, when i broke my leg 6 months ago, my ortho sent me in for
proprioception training and my pt worked with me on improving balance and
recovery from loss of balance.  i haven't kissed the ground since.  i'm
quite AMAZED at how much that physical therapy was worth to me!  wish i'd
had that training back when i was 23--would have saved me from lots of
broken bones, soft tissue injuries notwithstanding.

kate

HEALTHBEAT: Tell Your Doctor About a Fall Because It Might Prevent Another
Monday, February 11, 2008     13:41 EST

Washington, D.C.  --  Trip and fall lately? Seniors often won't mention it
unless they're hurt, but new guidelines say that first tumble is a good
predictor of who's at risk for another, more serious fall. With deaths from
falls increasing, the guidelines urge doctors to ask patients to 'fess up.

Better would be to prevent even that first fall. Now scientists are testing
simple wrist monitors that may one day be used to predict who is most likely
to topple, by tracking how stable they are with each step on any given day.

"Even the frail elderly individuals, some days they have good days and some
days they have bad days," says lead researcher Thurmon Lockhart, who in his
Virginia Tech laboratory literally forces volunteers to trip in the name of
science to determine what makes one person fall while
another stays upright.

It's a question of growing urgency, as fatal falls have spiked in the last
decade. The government recorded more than 19,000 deaths from fall-caused
injuries in 2005, the latest data available. Three-fourths were among people
65 and older.

Nonfatal falls trigger another half-million hospitalizations and almost 2
million emergency room visits.

Anybody can fall, especially during ice-slick winters or while playing
sports. Lockhart even worked with UPS, the brown-truck delivery company,to
help train their new drivers to avoid falls while hoisting packages.

But aging brings physical changes that make a fall more likely. Still,
falls are something of the Rodney Dangerfield of injury prevention, so
commonplace _ one in three seniors falls each year _ that they receive
little attention until someone is seriously harmed, such as breaking a hip
or suffering a brain injury.

At highest risk of falling, the guidelines found, are people with gait or
balance problems, dementia, Parkinson's disease or a history of stroke,
weakness or nerve disorders in legs, impaired vision or who use certain
medications.

The guidelines are aimed at neurologists, but a specialist in falls says
asking about earlier tumbles makes good sense for any physician.

Don't "pass it off as a natural part of the aging process, but see it as a
symptom with many possible underlying causes, some of which are highly
treatable," says Dr. David Riley of University Hospitals Case Medical Center
in Cleveland.

But before that first fall, the specific physical changes that determine
why one senior can recover from a slip while another won't are poorly
understood. Enter the Virginia Tech research.

First Lockhart tripped up several dozen people, a mix of young and old.
Don't worry: Safety harnesses kept fallers dangling harmlessly in the air,
instead of crashing. Videotape and sensors captured each movement, to map
the physiology of falling.

Younger people recovered balance better so that a slip seldom turned into a
fall, although some seniors recovered, too.

Why were others fall-prone? As you age, your gait becomes more variable.
Seniors tend to compensate with shorter steps. But if one step varies in
speed, length or direction from the next, it wobbles the up-and-down torso
motion that is a key to balance while walking, Lockhart found.

So when seniors with an unstable gait encounter an obstacle _ a bump in the
sidewalk or a slick floor _ they're already off-kilter and thus less able to
recover, he explains.

Lockhart found that it's possible to measure that gait instability with
some small, cheap devices, accelerometers and gyroscopes. Now, with funding
from the National Institutes of Health, he has begun experiments to see if a
wireless wrist monitor containing the gadgets, made by a company called
AFrame Digital Inc., can truly predict who is fall-prone.

If that sounds complicated, there is a simple test anyone can do today to
check if their leg muscles are weakening enough to worry about a fall.

It's called the "get up and go" test: Sit in a hard, straight-backed chair.
Fold your arms across your chest. Try to stand. If you can't on the first
try, tell a doctor so you can be checked for possible
problems, says Cleveland's Riley.

For people already known to be fall-prone, specialists advise some
commonsense precautions: Ask a doctor about exercises to improve balance and
strength. Taper off fall-inducing medications whenever possible.  Minimize
slipping risks, such as by removing rugs and adding stair rails and
hand-grabs in bathrooms.

But fatigue and stress can overcome any precaution, says Riley's patient,
Dolly Thomas of Timberlake, Ohio. Her Parkinson's disease makes Thomas, 75,
fall so often that she wears knee pads to cushion the blow.  Last week,
tired from caring for an ill husband, Thomas fell twice in one day.

"It just makes me so mad. I'll get up and darned if it doesn't happen
again," says Thomas, who just got a scooter in hopes of falling less.  "When
you feel good and ... you're an independent person like I've been, it's
really hard to sit and take it easy."
____________________________________

I can't sent a photo/binary into the newsgroup,
but here's the explanation of one that appeared.

This photo provided by Locomotion Research shows Linda Frazier uses a
reflective ball, infrared system that bounces back to the camera marker at
Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg, Virginia. Trip and fall
lately? Seniors often won't mention it unless they're hurt, but new
guidelines say that first tumble is the best predictor of who's at risk for
another, more serious fall. With deaths from falls increasing faster than
the population is aging, the guidelines urge doctors
to start asking their patients to 'fess up.  Better would be to predict
even that first fall. Researchers are hooking both the healthy and the frail
to simple monitors that may one day tell who is unsteady enough to need
help. Falls lead to 16,000 deaths, 500,000 hospitalizations and 1.8 million
emergency room visits a year.

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