By now, you’ve heard it over and over... falls are a bad thing for older people. Well, they’re a bad thing for anyone, but especially for older people. Preventing falls is challenging enough as people age, but add dementia on top of that and you’ve got a some added hurdles. This series of blog posts will lay out steps that you, as a caregiver or family member, can do to help reduce those risks for your loved one.
#1 Acknowledge the risk
Part 1 of a 10 part series
Newsflash...We are all aging. And acknowledging that things are changing for the older people in our lives...well that means we’re aging too (where did that time go…?). Falls increase with age and ALL older adults are at risk for falls. Age really is just a number, but for the sake of this guide, we’re talking about folks who have graced this earth for 65 years or more. The risks increase with each decade and are even greater when someone has dementia. In fact, people who have dementia are four to five times more likely to fall than older people without cognitive issues. Dementia doesn’t just affect memory. It also can cause changes in their judgment and insight, overall situation and safety awareness, vision and perception, coordination, ability to find their way (even in a familiar place) and the ability to move. All of these changes can increase the chance of them falling. Then there’s the other things that contribute to falls...like leg weakness, Vitamin D deficiency, balance and walking difficulties, vision problems, foot pain, unsafe footwear, and hazards throughout their home.
(This is part 1 of a 10 part blog series. Subscribe to get automatic updates of our blog posts. )
