All about the falls

Last week I was running some errands and came across a fall in progress. Let me tell you about it.

I was stopped at a light and headed north at a very busy intersection when I saw an elderly couple (actually about my age, come to think about it) struggling to get up from a fall. The wife was trying to lift her husband up from the ground where he had fallen from his walker. It was obvious he had little to no strength in his legs to help himself up so it was totally up to her.

As soon as the light would allow me, I turned the corner, parked my truck, put on the flashers and went over to help as quickly as I could. I tried with all the strength I could muster to lift the gentleman onto his walker but it was just too much for me to handle by myself. Soon, a robust woman, who must have been a caregiver, came by and together we were able to get the man up from the ground. He continued to struggle but his right leg just wouldn’t cooperate; his leg and foot were twisted and just hung limp. I don’t think they were broken, but they were just useless in his struggle to get back into his walker. 

Shortly, an officer came, as did a couple of women from his assisted living facility which was about a half mile down the road. Apparently the couple had walked all that distance and were trying to get to a nearby bank. I have  no idea how he could have made it that far in his condition, which included a rather severe case of Parkinson’s per our conversation while we awaited an ambulance that the officer had called. 

The immediate cause of his fall was the fact that the gentleman got the wheels of his walker off the pavement onto some rain soaked soil where they sunk in and down he went! I excused myself after consulting with the officer who had gotten control of the situation.

As I pulled away saying a prayer of thanksgiving for a pair of still healthy legs, I knew exactly what this week’s column would be about: Falls!

According to www.CDC.gov, falls are the leading cause of injury-related death among adults ages 65 and older, and the fall death rate is increasing.  The age-adjusted fall death rate increased by 41% from 2012 to 2021. I didn’t see it in the data that I hastily scanned, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the rising fall-related injury/death rate might be related to a rising rate of obesity.

The gentleman who fell off his walker isn’t the only fall that was on my mind last week. Just a few days before, my wife had a rather severe fall in our own living room! It seems that she slid on an acorn-sized object and down she went hitting head first on the piano bench and then on her hip which caused a football-sized bruise that is just now started to go away. Thank the Lord for a bruised hip instead of a broken hip!

And then there was my fall from the top of the barn stairs when we were still living at the farm. By the time I stopped tumbling down those muddy steps with an audible “Thud”, I was in severe pain from two broken ribs, as we found out after getting X-rays.

So what should we seniors do about the increasing likelihood of us falling as the years go by? To quote again from the CDC website: “Falls among adults aged 65 and older are common, costly, and preventable.” Preventable is the key word here!

Obviously I don’t have space here in this column to go into a treatise on fall prevention, but it is one of the things that Visiting Angels ® has a lot of experience with and can help with a free in-home assessment of yours or your senior’s particular fall risks, and how to minimize them. Give them a call or reach out to them at  https://www.visitingangels.com/centralga/home.

Thanks for reading All About Seniors… see you next week!

Bill Milby is a Director of Visiting Angels® of Central Georgia, a non-medical, living assistance service for seniors. If you have questions or comments about this column you can reach him at william.mercylink@gmail.com or search for us at  https://www.facebook.com/VisitingAngelsofCentralGA