How To Prevent Falls

After over a decade of practicing physical therapy, by far there are three common complaints that my patients repeatedly tell me cause them to fall. Most frequently, my patients tell me that they trip and fall, they feel dizzy and fall, or they lose their balance and then fall. With each of these scenarios, I have plenty of tips, tricks, and (of course) exercises to help to prevent the same situation from happening again. 

Situation #1: Trip and fall 

All of us have experienced this: you’re walking along, and suddenly you trip on something you had no idea was in your path. Ideally, you would catch yourself from falling, either with your hands on something sturdy, or by taking a step or two with your feet to regain your balance. But sometimes, a trip can be the cause of a full-out fall, especially if it occurs on or near stairs, which unfortunately makes it harder to prevent the “fall” portion of the event. 

How to prevent a trip and fall:

There are a few things you can do to help prevent trips in the first place, and to reduce the likelihood that you would sustain a fall, even in the event that you do trip. First and foremost, you want to assess your home environment for common trip hazards, and address these immediately. I wrote a whole blog post about how to fall-proof your home, and you can read it by clicking HERE. Or, you can download my checklist for 10 ways to fall-proof your home  by clicking HERE. Next, you’ll want to look at your walking mechanics. Do you shuffle when you walk, or drag your feet? Are you often catching your toe on the floor, or on the edge of the stairs? These are all signs that you need to lift your foot higher when you walk, and take a slightly bigger step as well, because otherwise you’re putting yourself at risk for a trip and fall. For more details on specific ways to improve your walking pattern, click HERE. Lastly, you can build your lower body and core strength to combat trips and falls. The stronger you are, the less likely you are to fall from a trip. If you’re not sure where to start, try my top 3 balance exercises by clicking HERE. 

Situation #2: Feeling dizzy and falling 

Dizziness, whether it’s vertigo or a feeling of spinning, can be so severe that it can cause you to fall. 

How to prevent getting dizzy and falling:

If you have frequent issues with dizziness, be sure you alert your doctor. They may want to perform a physical exam, examine the medications you’re taking, or both. Certain medications may cause dizziness, or they may interact with other medications to cause these symptoms. Your doctor may change a medication you take or adjust its dosage to help remediate any complaints of dizziness. You also want to regularly review all of your medications with your physician and ensure none of them are causing you to feel dizzy. Whenever a new medication is being prescribed, ensure that the provider is aware of all other medications you are currently taking. Another cause that your doctor can screen for during a physical exam is BPPV, or benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. This usually warrants a physical therapy referral, and can be resolved pretty quickly, usually with just a couple of visits! Once physically cleared by your doctor and/or physical therapist, regularly incorporating some vestibular exercises is a great way to sharpen your vestibular system and to help prevent dizziness occurring with your daily activities. You can watch a short video to learn how to do one such vestibular exercise: click HERE to watch on Instagram or click HERE to watch on Facebook. You also want to know and practice some safety strategies if you are someone who regularly suffers from vertigo or dizzy spells. My favorite strategy is called “the thumb trick” and you can watch a video about it by clicking HERE to watch it on Instagram, or by clicking HERE to watch it on Facebook. 

Situation #3: Losing your balance and falling

A lot of times there isn’t a clear reason for a fall. That is, there wasn’t an item that was tripped on, or a feeling of dizziness before falling. Sometimes you simply lose your balance, and before you can get solid footing again, the next thing you know, you’re on the floor. 

How to prevent a loss of balance and fall:

The best defense for this type of fall is through balance training, or proprioceptive training. This type of training purposefully pushes you slightly out of your comfort zone so that you feel a little wobbly, and your body has to correct itself back to center. This helps to improve your proprioceptive sense. Proprioception is how our brain senses what positions each of our body parts are in, without us having to actually look down at our bodies. The sharper our proprioception, the more quickly our brain realizes when we are off-balance or off-center, and therefore the sooner we can correct ourselves before it gets to the point that we actually fall. Practicing balancing on one leg is one great way to both test and improve your proprioception. For more information and details regarding how to do this safely, you can read this blog post by clicking HERE. 

There are plenty of steps you can take to prevent a fall, regardless of its root cause. By fall-proofing your home environment, ensuring good walking mechanics, managing your medications, and practicing vestibular and proprioception exercises, you can help to keep yourself on your feet.