I haven't fallen and I can get up...for now.

July 10, 2006 12:24 PM

In the last couple of weeks I swear that I've seen a story, read a story, a dreamed a story about senior citizens and falling. The gist was something about senior citizens being too cautious about walking (taking tiny, slow steps) and that leading to more falls. I think. After that it is fuzzy. Do they then suggest stretching, yoga, or something else? I can't remember. Does this ring a bell? Or maybe the idea was to to teach them to fall...Or maybe have them take bigger steps...my memory fails me.
posted by wogbat to health & fitness (5 comments total)

This might have to do with an article that was on the AP wire, about seniors who had had an accident earlier and were afraid to leave some space of comfort. I recall an incident in my own life, where a neighbor spent much of his later life cloistered, then when his daughter came to visit, she took him on vacation and had a cleaner in the house. The cleaner waxed the floors, the old man came home, had a fall and ended up dying in the hospital.
posted by parmanparman at 12:41 PM on July 10, 2006

You probably didn't dream it. Many elderly people have a fear of falling. I guess having a fear of falling may paralyze people so to speak, and in turn they are lacking in physical activity. The reason why so many elderly fall isn't just syncope or vertigo, it's brittle bones. Exercise strengthens bones, so sitting immobilized, fearing a fall, isn't a good thing.
posted by LoriFLA at 1:20 PM on July 10, 2006

I have a similarly vague recollection but I'm pretty sure that Tai Chi was cited as the effective confidence-rebuilding technique. (not much to go on, but it may help narrow your search)
posted by klarck at 3:45 PM on July 10, 2006

It's true; the elderly take smaller steps and are often afraid of falling. Walking is really the unconscious miracle of the nervous system; if you tried to co-ordinate all those muscular movements the way that, say, a conductor consciously co-ordinates the movement of her baton, you would fall over immediately.

For this reason, when aging affects those automatic walking centres of your nervous system, the standard response is to constrict the ambitiousness of the stride, to keep a rail to hand, to hunch over to preserve balance, and all those other things that make you think "wow, that person is walking like an old person does."

I didn't see your story on the news sources I frequent.
posted by ikkyu2 at 5:55 PM on July 10, 2006

I find when I am tentative about any movement, I am more likely to screw up, from driving to putting the cap on the toothpaste.
posted by zackdog at 12:18 AM on July 11, 2006