Many of our patients believe that there is a safe way to fall.
Here are some of the recommendations that have been circulated…
If you do fall, try to not tense up (in practice this is easier said than done, of course), protect your head.
If possible try to avoid backwards falls.
Police officers are taught to perform a triangle position fall with hands above the head falling into a modified push-up position.
Martial artists recommend rolling over your shoulder as you fall.
Some others recommend turning as you fall to avoid frontal or backwards falls, and/or bending your limbs as you fall to avoid high impact “stiff limb” momentum during the fall.
In sports some recommend tucking your neck as you fall to help protect neck and head.
Yet others recommend practicing falling down in a safe environment.
At Steady Strides we don’t find many of these solutions practical, as very few of our patients have the fitness level and/or brisk reflexes of martial artists and police officers. Practicing falling in a safe environment may be a good option for some, but many older adults have co-morbid osteoporosis/osteopenia weakening their bone structure and even low impact falls can cause fractures even under monitored environment with a physical therapist present.
Our best recommendation is to work on identifying the underlying biomechanical causes contributing to increased fall risk and working to gradually maximally these risk factors to prevent the falls from ever happening. If fall were to happen, most of us reflexively protect our head (so recommending that we do that is often superfluous), but for those who don’t we do strongly recommend to do so. We also recommend trying to avoid backwards falls, by identifying conditions and actions that cause them and working to avoid these circumstances.