Three Ways To Prevent Diabetes Related Falls
People with diabetes can be at increased risk for falls owed to frequent low blood sugar episodes, and health complications such as nerve damage, vision loss, or foot ulcers. This is especially true for older individuals.
To help prevent potentially debilitating falls, we can do three things: enlist the aid of medical professionals, exercise regularly, and correct the challenges to safety in our home.
Three Ways To Prevent Falls
1. Physician and Therapist Help
The American Geriatrics Society recommends older individuals get an annual doctor’s assessment for fall risk. After looking at a patient’s hypoglycemia history, fall history, prescriptions, and mobility issues a doctor may recommend medication changes, and/or refer patients to a physical or occupational therapist. The doctor might also screen for vitamin deficiencies (e.g., vitamins D, B12) that can cause weakness, or dizziness.
Occupational and physical therapists can look for safety hazards in our living environment, and evaluate us for balance, posture, and mobility problems. They may recommend using adaptive equipment or tools that make everyday tasks easier. Physical therapists can also teach us exercises to improve our gait, stability, and strength.
2. Exercise
The most common recommendation for fall prevention is regular exercise. Activities that enhance feet, leg, and hip flexibility, and resistance training that strengthens abdominal and back muscles are especially beneficial for better balance. The gentle, flowing movements of Tai Chi can also improve our coordination, endurance, range of motion, and stability, and is a suitable activity for all fitness levels.
3. Home Safety
By removing safety challenges in our home we can significantly decrease our risk for falling. The measures we choose to take will depend on the severity of our diabetes-related risk factors, and our age:
- Walking Surfaces. Make sure carpet edges are secured and remove throw rugs; decorative throw rugs can be used as wall-hangings. Keep mats off the bathroom floor unless the tub or shower is being used. Get rid of unnecessary floor clutter, including wires in high-traffic locations. Secure all stairway carpeting, and place treads on stairs; never leave objects on or near stairways.
- Repair cracks in driveways or outdoor walkways, have uneven bricks re-laid, and where possible, level uneven outdoor surfaces. Keep shrubbery along walkways trimmed back, and be certain there are no weeds to stumble over.
- Furniture. Modify or remove low furniture that makes sitting or standing difficult. Adding dense foam cushions to low chairs or sofas may raise the height enough to make them safer. Removing wheels from a bed will make getting in and out of it easier, and less risky.
- Avoid using step stools or ladders; maybe purchase an extended reach tool (a “grabber”) to retrieve items on higher shelves, or reorganize so that all belongings are within arm’s reach. Consider putting a chair or stool with rubber feet in the shower.
- Other Safety Options. Install grab bars by the toilet, and in the tub, or shower. Ideally, stairs should have handrails on each side for the entire length of the stairway. Consider wearing an alert device, such as Life Alert, to report a fall, or other emergency.
Illumination. Have every room, plus indoor or outdoor stairways and walkways adequately illuminated. Make sure a lamp or light switch is reachable from the bed. Those who wear bifocals are recommended to place fluorescent tape on all steps to avoid accidentally missing one. Make use of night lights throughout the house or apartment.
We will never know about the falls avoided through our awareness of balance issues, and by taking fall-preventive actions, but that kind of not-knowing can help ensure our longterm mobility, and independence.
Source: Emily Piven Haltiwanger, OTD, MHE, OTR/Diabetes Self Management
Photo credit: Hugo Chisholm