Fighting Falls

“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall,” says the famous dictum. But while that’s true on a metaphorical level, for seniors, physical falls can lead to serious injury.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), one out of five falls causes a serious injury such as a head trauma or broken bones. Each year, three million senior citizens are treated in emergency departments for fall-related injuries. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) presents similar facts and adds another: Slips and falls are second only to motor vehicles as a cause of fatalities.

Incidence of falls goes up with each decade of life; of all deaths associated with falls, 60 percent involve people aged 75 years or older. Falls become particularly dangerous as we get older, says Caren Redlich, LCSW, CEO of SeniorDirectNY.com — which provides assessments for fall risk, aide placements, psychotherapy, and concierge services for senior citizens — because our bones are more fragile.

Once an older person is hospitalized with, say, a hip fracture due to a fall, he becomes vulnerable to a downward spiral in emotional and physical health. It can look like this: A hip fracture results in hospitalization and immobilization in a hospital bed, which leads to muscle and joint stiffness, which will later require physical therapy to resolve.