You Can Prevent Falls!

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The Home Safety Foundation is working with social psychologist Dr. Ellen Sogolow to create a new book that through simple actions could reduce the risk of falls for older adults. 

Dr. Sogolow asks have you or a loved one had a fall? While we can fall at any age, older adults falls are responsible for millions of serious injuries to U.S. adults age 65 and older each year.  Over the past 20 years, rates of fatal falls have been steadily increasing.

As you may know from personal experience, we slip on ice, trip on toys, lose our balance on uneven sidewalks and paths. We fall out of bed, slip in the tub, get dizzy in the hallway, and crash down to the ground window shopping. It may seem that fall risks are everywhere. This can quickly become overwhelming, leading us to throw up our hands and declare falls are inevitable. 

Dr. Ellen D. Sogolow, a social psychologist, shows us how we can prevent these disastrous fall events.  She takes on the myth that falls are inevitable. Instead, as she demonstrates with 12 cases, the controls to avoid falls are in your hands. Her upcoming book, tentatively titled, You Can Prevent Falls! Lessons Learned from Science, Family, and Friends is written primarily for older adults and their loved ones. 

Dr. Sogolow’s career in health care and public policy includes faculty and research positions at University of North Carolina-- Chapel Hill, Public Administration and Public Policy Program; and State University of New York-- Health Sciences Center Brooklyn, Departments of Medicine and Psychiatry. In about the year 2000, at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) she began her focus on older adult falls. Now retired, this is her first book on falls prevention directed not to the medical profession but to the general public, especially community-based older adults who aim to live independently and live well.

Contact devans@smartsafety.org for additional information.

The Home Safety Foundation is partnering with social scientists, exercise specialists and engineers to gather information that can help older adults to avoid injuries caused by falls.  In too many cases results of a fall injuries are severe enough that the quality of life is impacted substantially and permanently.  

We are surrounded by fall risks both inside and outside our homes.  Adults 65 and older are especially at risk.  More than 1 in 4 will fall each year.  Three million will go to the emergency room for care after a fall.  

Yet, we also know that most fall risks can be eliminated or reduced. 

When you hear about people AT RISK FOR FALLS – do you wonder if this might apply to you? Are you at risk?  Answering 12 questions Yes or No will tell you. 

A very good online implementation of the Risk of Falls Assessment is offered by the National Council on Aging. Link: www.ncoa.org/article/falls-free-checkup.

The same 12 self-assessment questions and scoring useful in identifying falls risk are available to download below. For each item, answer Yes or No.  No-one else will see your answers. This is for you.