Many falls are preventable. These tips can help

Small changes and good habits make a difference, suggest health experts

- Louisa Kamps

If you've ever watched children at a playground or visited a skating rink, you've undoubtedly seen people of all ages taking tumbles. Falling is never fun, but the consequences become more serious as we get older.

More than 14 million adults age 65 and over report falling every year in the United States, and the risk increases with age. In fact, falls are the primary cause of injury-related death among older adults in the United States, and they can result in broken hips, spinal fractures and traumatic brain injuries.

But many falls can be prevented, said Dr Gerald Pankratz, a geriatrician at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. That makes him “optimistic about this issue,” he said.

According to a recent policy statement from the American Public Health Association, evidence-based fall prevention strategies can reduce falls by 6 to 36 percent, depending on the intervention.

In his practice, Dr Pankratz said, it is not unusual for people assessed as having a 50 per cent chance of falling over the next year to cut their risk in half by taking action to avoid slips and trips.

Why falling increases with age

Normal changes in our bodies as we age make us more prone to falling and more likely to experience injuries from those falls, said Dr David Reuben, a geriatrician at the University of California, Los Angeles.

We gradually begin losing strength in our 30s and 40s, and our balance begins declining around 50. But there's "a kind of inflection" point around age 75, Dr Reuben said, when people begin to experience more injuries when they fall.

As we age, peripheral nerves, which send messages from muscles to the brain, become less effective. This can reduce our body awareness, making it harder to recover quickly if we start to wobble.