Technology helps with finding the right balance

• One out of three adults age 65 or older falls each year.

• Among older adults, falls are the leading cause of both fatal and nonfatal injuries.

• In 2013, 2.5 million nonfatal falls among older adults were treated in emergency departments and more than 734,000 of these patients were hospitalized.

• 20 to 30 percent of people who fall suffer moderate to severe injuries, such as lacerations, hip fractures and head traumas.

• Most fractures among older adults are caused by falls. The most common are fractures of the spine, hip, forearm, leg, ankle, pelvis, upper arm and hand.

Preventing falls

Here are ways older adults can reduce their chance of falling:

• Exercise regularly. Exercises should focus on increasing leg strength and improving balance and should get more challenging over time.

• Ask a doctor or pharmacist to review their medicines to identify those that may cause dizziness or drowsiness.

• Have eyes checked by an eye doctor at least once a year and update their eyeglasses.

• Make homes safer by reducing tripping hazards, adding grab bars inside and outside the shower and next to the toilet, adding railings on both sides of stairways and improving the lighting in homes.

Source: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

After John Marshall’s stroke three years ago, the Vancouver man quickly realized his body wasn’t capable of what it once was.

Marshall worked with speech therapists to relearn how to swallow and talk. Occupational and physical therapy helped Marshall to regain movement in the fingers of his left hand and to walk again. But one area of Marshall’s recovery that still needed attention was his balance.

“First, it’s just walking,” Marshall said of his recovery goals. “But then, as you start thinking about your life, I wanted to do more than just move around. I wanted to play tennis.”

Not only was Marshall’s lack of balance preventing him from doing some of his favorite activities, it was making him concerned about falling and injuring himself.

New technology at Touchmark at Fairway Village is helping Marshall, 77, to regain the balance he lost with the stroke.

“I’m feeling pretty confident at this point that I can get good mobility and balance again,” Marshall said.

Testing balance

Three months ago, Marshall was tested on the Balance Master, interactive technology that can assess a person’s balance and retrain the sensory and voluntary motor control of balance.

The Balance Master uses a force plate — a plate on the ground with sensors to gauge movement — and an interactive program on a computer. The program runs a series of tests to determine a person’s weaknesses and strengths.

In Marshall’s case, he was challenged to stand still — first with eyes open, then with eyes closed — on a firm surface, then on a squishy foam block. His limits of stability were tested when the program directed Marshall to stand still and lean his body forward, backward and to the sides.

Finally, Marshall’s rhythmic weight shifting was tested. The program directed Marshall to move his body side to side, then front to back, on pace with an icon moving on the computer screen.

The tests identified one of Marshall’s biggest weaknesses: pulling himself out of the stable position, said Tiffany Bunn, an exercise specialist at Touchmark.

People voluntarily pull themselves out of a stable position dozens of times each day — leaning their head back in the shower, reaching for a refrigerator door. Marshall struggled to do so. He wouldn’t lean his body backward during the initial test, Bunn said.

Instead, Marshall was focused on keeping himself stable and secure.

“It does seem strange to put yourself in a danger,” Marshall said.

But after the initial testing, Marshall worked with Bunn twice a week for three months, training on the Balance Master once a week and working with health center equipment the other day. On Dec. 30, Marshall was retested and saw significant improvements in several areas.

“I don’t really worry about falling,” Marshall said. “I’m walking better. One of these days, I might start running again.”

Balance is key

For anyone, but especially seniors, balance is important to quality of life. People rely on their balance to complete the simplest tasks: getting in and out of a car, stepping off of a curb, grabbing something from the top shelf, picking something up off of the floor, Bunn said.

Losing balance is particularly troublesome for seniors, who are at greater risk for serious injury if they fall, she said.

“That balance really is the key to everything,” Bunn said. “You have to stay on your feet and transition through life.”