Preventing Falls 1

 One of our most requested workshops is on Fall Prevention and the reason is clear:

·       Two-thirds of those who experience a fall will fall again within 6 months

·       Two-thirds of falls are preventable!

·       At least one-third of all falls in the elderly involve environmental hazards in the home

·       Most falls do not result in serious injury.  However, there is often a psychological impact.

o   25% of community-dwelling people 75 or over unnecessarily restrict their activities because of fear of falling.

Why does a fall occur?

It is important to understand that any individual fall occurs for more than one reason. The greater the number of risk factors to which an individual is exposed, the greater the probability of a fall.

The good news – many of these risk factors are preventable. Some people believe that falls are a normal part of ageing, they are not. Lack of knowledge leads to a lack of preventative action, thus resulting in falls.

The most common risk factors for falls have been categorized as Intrinsic Risk (characteristics of the person) and Extrinsic Risk (circumstances of the fall). You can examine your risk factors with an idea of taking any preventative measures that you can.

Reducing the Risk of a Fracture with a Fall

Osteoporosis: This is a condition wherein bones become more porous, less resistant to stress and more prone to fractures. This caused by a change in hormones decreased calcium and vitamin D deficiency and decreased physical activity.

Make sure you are getting enough calcium through your eating habits or by combining with supplements. 1,500 mg of calcium is recommended

Get sufficient vitamin D to enhance calcium absorption via exposure to sunlight. As little as 15 minutes a day.

Regularly do weight-bearing exercises

Talk with your doctor about bone mineral density (BMD) test.

External Hip Protectors

Hip fractures generally result from direct trauma to the hip bone occurring because of the fall. Hip protectors assist by absorbing some of the force to reduce the risk of fracture. Evidence and research are mixed and many people do not like wearing these devices.

RIP Ronni Bennett

On October 30, at 6:28 PM local time, Veronica "Ronni" Bennett died. Ronni bravely documented the ageing process, with her Last Great Gift being the documentation of her death. I read those words and tears filled my eyes. I felt I had lost a role model and a mentor. As one of her followers said. “Condolences to her family and friends and all who cared for her. There will be a hole in all our lives that likely will never be filled.”

 For those who do not know Ronni for 16 years has blogged about what it means to grow old in her blog, As Time Goes By, what it is really like to grow old. A few years ago, she was diagnosed with Terminal Cancer and her blog shifted to writing about her experiences with cancer. As her friend posted on her blog yesterday “Ronni bravely documented the ageing process, with her Last Great Gift being the documentation of her death.”

Her legion of supporters and fans are as upset as I am. I started reading her blog about 10 years ago. At that time there were very few blogs that were talking about growing old. I found her writing to be funny, original, creative, truthful, poignant, straightforward, and enjoyable to read. I will miss her voice, as will the thousands of others who read her work. She was one of a kind. Her courage and her willingness to speak about the path she was walking is an inspiration to all of us.

Her final words should be remembered and will provide hope for all of us who at some point will arrive at the same point in our own lives, where we know we are going to die. Her friend Autumn who posted the notice of Ronnie’s death said “I will leave you with knowing that she was ready. Just before she died, she said, "When you get here, it is really nice. I am not afraid.”

Saying the right thing at the right time

 It is interesting to me that many of us do not believe in our ability to say the right thing at the right time. Sometimes saying nothing is saying the right thing, sometimes words of comfort are correct.  When we were younger some of us never worried about what we said. When I was younger, I had a friend who prided himself on saying the unexpected that sometimes bordered on being rude. I heard him say many times, “If I don’t say it no one will, I am not ashamed of being the a**h*le here.” Most of the time he was correct in his view. When I was young, I sometimes would play his role but found it unrewarding.

Saying the right thing means speaking your truth when you know others don’t want to hear it or speaking to those who are hurting. As I grew older,  I learned that speaking my truth to those in power was easy if I did not try to belittle or embarrass. At first, I used words to try to hurt and humiliate, but over time, as I spoke truth to those who needed to be told the truth,(as I saw it) I did learn to be more diplomatic and took steps to not embarrass anyone.

I learned this lesson when I was teaching my Masters's students. I had one older man who was a leader in his school, explain to me that when he disagreed with his Principal, he would take time to meet with him privately and if they could not come to an agreement or understanding he would then raise the issue publically. He said that 95% of the time the private conversations solved or resolved the issue. I listened and put his ideas into practice in my professional and private life.

The harder part of saying the right thing is when someone is hurting or grieving. Since I lost both my parents when I was young, I can and do say “I have some understanding of what you are going through but I am here if you need me. For those searching for the right thing as we know more people who have lost loved ones, here are some words

·        I am so sorry for your loss.

·        I wish I had the right words; just know I care.

·        I don't understand how you feel, but I am here to help in any way I can.

·        You and your loved one will be in my thoughts and prayers.

·        My favourite memory of your loved one is…

·        I am always just a phone call away.

Until everyone believes in their own ability to say exactly the right thing, at exactly the right time, to exactly the right person there is help, just reach out.

New Normal

I heard a commentator on the radio ask the question “How tired of you of hearing ‘We are moving to a new normal”. He then went on to say that the term he is hearing a great deal of now is “Normalcy”. This is a term that is being used a lot instead of “the new normal”.

The term normalcy was first used by United States presidential candidate Warren G. Harding's campaign slogan for the election of 1920. Although detractors of the time tried to belittle the word "normalcy" as a neologism as well as a malapropism, saying that it was poorly coined by Harding (as opposed to the more accepted term normality), there were contemporaneous discussion and evidence that normalcy had been listed in dictionaries as far back as 1857. Harding's promise was to restore the United States' pre-war mentality, without the thought of war tainting the minds of the American people. To sum up his points, he stated:

America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.

Harding wanted to end the move toward a more progressive society and to make people forget the war and the Spanish Flu that killed millions between 1918 and 1919. The Citizens of the US in 1920 had gone through rationing in World War, a Pandemic that killed millions, labour unrest causing massive strikes, a red scare which resulted in Federal raids in 30 cities with the arrest of 10,000 immigrants. Racial tensions were running high because Black soldiers returning from the war were demanding the end of segregation and to meet this perceived threat there was a rise of the right-wing extremist groups such as the Ku Klux Clan. Harding wanted to return to a simpler and better time and help the people move toward what he described as “normalcy”

 Return to normalcy” became the theme for Harding’s candidacy in the 1920 general election, promising an “America first” policy, Harding wanted to end internationalism. Harding opposed American participation in the League of Nations; his Democratic challenger, James M. Cox, supported it. Harding also struck a pro-business stance that was a marked departure from the progressivism of Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt before him. The electorate, apparently ready for an end to tension and upheaval, handed Harding a commanding victory as he captured more than 60 percent of the popular vote and tallied 404 electoral votes compared with 127 for Cox.

Promising a return to normalcy or a return to a new normal has worked in the past in the US, who knows it may work again.