Falls Prevention for Older Adults in Bedfordshire

About a third of people over 65 fall at least once a year. Most falls do no lasting harm, but they change how people live: they go out less, do less, and get weaker, which makes the next fall more likely. Falls are one of the risks of getting older that respond well to the right kind of exercise.

Why do falls happen?

Hardly ever for one reason. A fall is usually several small things lining up at once, which is why fixing just one of them is often not enough.

• Weak legs — the most common cause, and the most fixable
• Slower balance reactions — so a trip that was once a wobble becomes a fall
• Dizziness — including the inner ear kind that comes on when you turn your head or roll over in bed, which is often very treatable
• Tablets — blood pressure tablets, sleeping tablets and some antidepressants all add to the risk. Ask for a review; do not stop anything yourself.
• Blood pressure dropping when you stand up, which causes falls getting out of a chair or bed
• Eyesight — and varifocal glasses, which blur the edge of a step
• Feet and footwear — painful feet, and slippers with no backs
• The house — rugs, trailing wires, dark stairs, a rail on one side only
• Fear of falling — which makes people walk stiffly, and stiff walking is less steady

After a stroke, or with Parkinson's, the risk is higher again, and the exercise needs to be planned around the condition.

What actually reduces the risk?

This is one of the best-studied areas of physiotherapy, and the answer is quite specific. Exercise cuts falls, but only the right kind.

What works: programmes that properly challenge balance, combined with strength work for the legs that gets harder over time, done at least twice a week and kept going for months. The balance part has to be genuinely challenging — standing with the feet together or one in front of the other, reaching, turning, stepping in different directions. If it feels easy, it is not training your balance.

What does not work on its own: walking. Walking is good for lots of things, but it does not build leg strength or train balance, and walking programmes on their own do not cut falls. Gentle seated exercise has the same problem.

A medication review, an eye test and making the house safer all help as well, and the house works best when someone looks at it in person.

What does a home falls assessment involve?

You. Simple tests that give a number to work from: how many times you can stand up from a chair in thirty seconds, how long you can balance with your feet in a line, how long it takes to stand, walk a few steps, turn and sit down. Plus a look at how you walk, and at any dizziness.

Your house. Room by room. The stairs and the rails, the lighting, the height of the bed and chair, rugs, thresholds, the bathroom, the garden step, and the route to the toilet at night.

Your life. What you have stopped doing, and what you want to get back to. The plan is built around that.

What does the exercise look like?

Usually a short daily routine using things you can do in your kitchen holding the worktop: standing up from your own chair, heel raises at the sink, stepping practice, standing with your feet closer together and then in a line. It gets harder by using less support and a narrower stance, not simply by doing more.

After six to twelve weeks most people can do measurably more. The chair test is the easiest to watch, and usually the first to improve.

What if I have already fallen?

Tell your GP, even if you were not hurt. A fall is the best sign that another may follow, and it should lead to a look at the cause and at your tablets. If you could not get up, or it took a long time, that is worth practising with a physiotherapist — see our guide on how to get up safely after a fall.

Why home visits suit falls prevention

Falls happen at home, mostly on the stairs, getting out of a chair, or on the way to the toilet at night. A clinic cannot check any of those. Working in your own rooms, on your own stairs, means the plan fits the place the problem lives.

Home visits across Bedfordshire

Falls prevention checks and strength and balance programmes are available at home across Bedford, Kempston, Luton, Dunstable, Leighton Buzzard, Ampthill, Biggleswade and across Bedfordshire.

About Ibrahim and Vinay

Ibrahim Ali (HCPC PH61934) and Vinay Allam (HCPC PH129593) of Physio Experts provide home visit physiotherapy across Bedford, Kempston, Luton, Dunstable, Leighton Buzzard, Ampthill, Biggleswade and across Bedfordshire. Ibrahim has been a physiotherapist for over 30 years, 23 of them in the NHS, where he works as an extended scope practitioner; he holds a Doctor of Physiotherapy degree and a master's in neurological physiotherapy. Vinay is an NHS musculoskeletal physiotherapist with extra training in sports injuries and dizziness and balance problems.

Read their profile or call 0330 133 2125.

Please mention Mobile Physiotherapist.co.uk when you call.