Day 4 of our National Public Health Week blog series! Today€™s topic is Injury Prevention.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

1. One in four Americans aged 65+ falls each year.
2. Every 11 seconds, an older adult is treated in the emergency room for a fall; every 19 minutes, an older adult dies from a fall.
3. Falls result in more than 2.8 million injuries treated in emergency departments annually, including over 800,000 hospitalizations and more than 27,000 deaths.
4. In 2014, the total cost of fall injuries was $31 billion.
5. The financial toll for older adult falls is expected to increase as the population ages and may reach $67.7 billion by 2020.

WellShare International knows the importance of injury prevention. Through the Metropolitan Area Agency on Aging, our staff has been trained to teach A Matter of Balance to older adults to help them reduce their fear of falling and increase their activity levels.

This 8-week (two-hour session) structured group intervention focuses on teaching participants to view falls and fear of falling as controllable, set realistic goals to increase activity, change their environment to reduce fall risk factors, and exercise to increase strength and balance. We administer pre- and post-evaluations of the program, teach the sessions in both English and Somali, and give the participants the option to do the exercises either sitting up or standing.

For more information, watch below video courtesy of Maine Health and visit their website.

References:

https://www.ncoa.org/news/resources-for-reporters/get-the-facts/falls-prevention-facts/

https://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/falls/adultfalls.html

http://metroaging.org/community-work/healthy-aging/matter-of-balance/

https://mainehealth.org/healthy-communities/healthy-aging/matter-of-balance