Killer Falls

There’s some troubling news on the health front for older Americans. More and more seniors are being seriously injured, and even killed, by falling. In fact, you could say that falling has almost reached epidemic proportions among America’s elderly.

The statistics tell a very sad story. In 1999, about 10,100 Americans aged 65 or more were killed by falling. In 2020, among the same demographic, that number had increased significantly, to 36,500 deaths. In part, that increase is due to the fact that there are more elderly Americans, as the Baby Boom generation ages, but the fall rate is increasing, too: from 29 fall-related deaths per 100,000 seniors in 1990 to 69 fall-related deaths per 100,000 in 2020. Fall-related death rates rose across every gender and ethnic group, with the highest death rate–78 per 100,000–among older white Americans.

Although statistics are hard to determine, because seniors don’t always ‘fess up to their kids or their doctors when they take a tumble, experts believe that the rate of non-fatal falls is increasing, too. The CDC estimates that about 25 percent of all seniors take a fall each year, with 3 million visiting the emergency room and more than 800,000 having to be hospitalized for head injuries, broken hips, or other debilitating injuries.

Why are more older Americans falling, and suffering the consequences? Experts think it is due to a combination of factors, including the fact that more Americans are surviving serious health conditions, like strokes, that leave them less steady on their feet. Another cause is that more of our elderly are taking multiple medications that, in combination, can affect balance or cause dizziness. I suspect that part of the problem, too, is that some seniors just aren’t moving around as much as they should and, as a result, their balance, reflexes, and nerve impulses aren’t providing the movement support and signals they once did.

In short, there’s a reason why my doctor introduced a “gait test” for me once I hit 65. If you’re a senior, making sure that you continue to be physically active, and that you (and your doctor) pay attention to the combined effects of your medication, can help you to avoid one of those killer falls. And it doesn’t make sense to be too proud to talk about any dizziness or balance issues. If you feel you might need grab bars, you should get them.

Galileo And Me

Scientific legend has it that a young Galileo Galilei conducted an experiment that helped to define some of the properties of gravity. In order to test Aristotle’s notion that objects fall at different rates according to their weight, Galileo is reputed to have taken two balls with materially different weights to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and dropped them simultaneously. According to the story, the balls fell to the ground below at the same rate of acceleration and landed at the same time — thereby showing that Aristotle was wrong and the invisible force of gravity acts equally on objects with different masses. Galileo’s findings still hold up — even when modern-day scientists test the effects of gravitational acceleration at the atomic level.

I conducted my own impromptu experiment with gravity yesterday morning, and can attest that gravity is still out there, working the same way it always has.

I was just starting my morning walk. We had been subjected to the dreaded “wintry mix” overnight, and the footing was treacherous. The parking lot at the corner had been cleared of snow and looked to be dry and safe, so I decided to take a short cut through the parking lot. As I proceeded with a jaunty step across the lot, my right foot hit a patch of black ice, my feet shot out to the left, and I landed hard on the asphalt surface on my right side. I gingerly picked myself up, checked to make sure that I was in one piece, then carefully made my way back to our house, figuring that the wise course would be to skip any further icy adventures that day. Fortunately, I had on several layers as well as my own more than ample personal padding, no bones were broken, and I’m sore, but not badly bruised.

It’s the first time I’ve fallen to the ground in a while, and it got me to thinking how amazing gravity is. I probably fell no more than a few feet, but I struck the pavement with breathtaking (literally) force, as if one of the Ohio State linebackers had hit me at full speed and laid a crushing blow on my right side. The experience made me think that I need to be a lot more judicious about walking during the winter, because gravity is always out there, brooding and ready to yank you down.

I’m just grateful I wasn’t falling from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Death At The Grand Canyon

There’s been another death of a tourist at the Grand Canyon National Park.  The National Park Service is reporting that a 70-year-old woman fell about 200 feet from the rim of the canyon.  The incident is the second accidental death at the Grand Canyon National Park this year and the third death by a fall in the area.

In an article on the death, Grand Canyon park staff are reported to encourage all visitors “to have a safe visit by staying on designated trails and walkways, always keeping a safe distance from the edge of the rim and staying behind railings and fences at overlooks.”  That’s good advice, but it’s not exactly easy to follow.  The Grand Canyon isn’t fenced in, and the lure of getting close to the edge of the rim, to take in the canyon in all of its dizzying, magnificent vastness, is hard to resist.

When we made our visit to the Grand Canyon some years ago with the boys, I remember inching my way closer and closer until I thought:  “Okay, that’s really close enough.”  I was probably a foot or two from the rim, like the person in the picture shown above, but it felt like I was on the edge of the precipice, and I didn’t feel the need to have my feet touching the edge so I could look directly downward.  I also tried to keep the kids from going right up to the edge.  If you do that, you leave yourself no margin for error, and any stumble or misstep could send you plummeting to your doom.  And, if your attention to where you are carefully placing your feet is distracted because you’re taking a picture with your phone — which apparently is what happened with at least one of the fatal incidents this year — the chances of a horrible mishap are just increased.

If you make a visit to the Grand Canyon, Devil’s Tower, or other cliffs, canyons, or rocky outcropping sites out west, you immediately notice that there aren’t many fences.  Fencing in the sites would not be feasible because of their sizes and configurations, and would ruin the views, besides.  The National Park Service trusts people to be mindful of their own safety and to avoid taking stupid risks — but of course, the sites were developed in the days before cell phone cameras and people mindlessly moving around, without looking where they are going, to try to get the perfect shot.

Falling Nightmares

Normally I don’t remember my dreams. Since I’ve started using crutches, however, I’ve started to have vivid nightmares about falling.

If you accept the standard explanation of dreams — that they are a kind of post-day brain dump, when the conscious brain is out of it and the subconscious brain riffles through the images of the day just ended — my falling dreams shouldn’t come as a surprise. I know that I can’t put weight on my left foot, because it would painfully bend the steel pins in my toes and make them harder to extract. So, even something routine, like a short trip to the bathroom, becomes a cause for careful attention and concern about a slip and fall.

But there’s more to it. I scrabble up the stairs on hands and knees, dragging the crutches up the stairs with me, then use a chair at the top of the stairs to rise, balance, and get the crutches under my arms so I can move along. The transfer from chair to crutches is inherently unsteady, and I’m doing it balanced on one foot at the top of the stairs, wondering if a loss of balance will send me tumbling down the steps. The same process occurs when I go down the stairs, of course. And then there’s the silly worry about somehow falling out of bed and landing on my bad foot. I’ve never had that happen before, but now the possibility nags at me.

I don’t ever remember having falling dreams before, but they aren’t very pleasant. They’re not limited to the bed or stair scenarios; just about any falling context will do. I awaken with a lurch, arms flailing and grasping for a hold, heart pounding, hoping that the startling experience doesn’t itself cause me to tumble to the floor.

I hate these dreams. For years after I finished any form of schooling, I still had the occasional “failure to study for an exam that’s happening today” dream, and they never failed to get my pulse pounding. Now I wonder: long after these pins are removed and I’m walking normally again, will I continue to have these scary falling nightmares?