UNC Hospitals officials celebrated the first day of the fall season by warning against a different kind of fall.
Falls Prevention Awareness Day, held Friday, aimed to highlight the risk factors for falling amongst the elderly.
Richard Wall, 67, showcased his renewed sense of balance at the Falls Awareness Fair, joking while standing on one foot that he wouldn’t fall.
After falling in his apartment last April, Wall underwent several sessions of physical and occupational therapy at the UNC’s Geriatric Specialty Clinic.
“All those commercials with, ‘Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up,’ — trust me, they are true,” he said.
“I crashed down on the floor. Very fortunately, I had my cell phone with me, and I could call the ambulance and a friend,” he said.
Dr. Jan Busby-Whitehead, director of the UNC Center for Aging and Health, said people aged 65 and older living alone are 30 to 40 percent more likely to fall. That likelihood increases to 50 percent when the elderly move to long-term care facilities.
Busby-Whitehead said there are multiple risk factors that lead to falls, including memory loss, cognitive impairment, vision loss and medical conditions like diabetes that can result in a loss of feeling in the legs and feet.
But the most common and most treatable cause of falling, she said, is medication.