Seniors get help stopping falls

CHAPEL HILL -- Gerta Campen fights fear of falling by bulking up, not freezing up.

At 92, Chapel Hill resident Campen has been in strength training for months. Building strength, balance and confidence is part of the current wisdom for halting a growing epidemic of falls among older people.

"At least when you fall and there's something to hold onto, your arms are strong enough," Campen, a retired medical secretary, said late last week at the Seymour Center in Chapel Hill.

Public health experts, therapists and doctors have been warning for years about the perilous intersection of two trends: the rising percentage of older people and the increasing frequency with which they fall.

Taken together, it's a $27 billion national health-care problem that in many cases can be prevented, say members of a burgeoning North Carolina coalition.

"Oftentimes, folks understand that they need to be careful or change their environment by removing throw rugs, clutter, etc., but they don't think about other risk factors that contribute to falls," said Ellen Schneider, an associate director of the University of North Carolina Institute on Aging and one of the founders of the N.C. Falls Prevention Coalition.

"They may need to have their medications reviewed, have their vision checked or, most importantly, increase their lower body strength and improve their balance."

Reams of statistics point out the pain, inconvenience and medical costs of falls -- on average, a person older than 65 goes to an emergency department every 12 minutes across the country after taking a tumble. Death rates from falls are on a steep upward spike.

But the issue is practical prevention. About 40 groups across North Carolina have joined the falls prevention coalition, starting efforts in towns across the state to drive down the rate of elderly spills.

"We're trying to get more places to identify people who are at risk before they fall," said Carol Giuliani, a researcher and physical therapy professor at UNC-Chapel Hill. "That could be done by physical therapists, nurses in the community, people who do exercise classes for the well seniors, people who work in long-term care."

North Carolina is one of only a handful of states that has a statewide group working on the problem. The year-old group's successes are as symbolic as Gov. Beverly Perdue's designation of this first week of fall as "fall prevention awareness week," and as concrete as the research-tested balance classes getting started across the state.

Real success will come, members said, when networks are able to identify many more of those likely to fall and to come up with appropriate ways to address each person's risk.

"There is a frightening lack of resources to address falls, given the scope of the problem and increasing aging population," Jane Painter, an associate professor of occupational therapy at East Carolina University, said last week at a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention forum on healthy aging.

Solutions should involve better education and the involvement of home health workers, county departments on aging, hospitals, doctors, emergency workers and therapists statewide, Painter said at the Chapel Hill event.

Packed classes

In highly educated Orange County, seniors are already maxing out the balance classes offered by the county Department on Aging in Chapel Hill and Hillsborough.

"They are really hard to get into because people are so concerned about it; they are concerned about not being able to do the things they want to do because of fear of falling," said Myra Austin, wellness coordinator for the Department on Aging.

On Friday and today, fitness instructors from across Wake County are getting training from Be Active North Carolina in a research-tested program called A Matter of Balance.

In addition to strength and balance training, people taking the classes, developed at Boston University, will learn to see falls as controllable, set goals for being more active and make changes in their homes to cut out environmental risks.

If balance-specific classes aren't available, any exercise that improves strength for older people can be helpful.

"I noticed my balance wasn't as good as it had been," said Campen, the Chapel Hill retiree.

Using a treadmill, step training and lifting five-pound weights has improved Campen's balance, she said.

"If I do start to fall, I can usually prevent it," she said.