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What Can Your Senior Do if She’s Afraid of Falling?

Senior Care in Katy TX: Fear of falling can actually make your senior more likely to experience a fall.
Senior Care in Katy TX
Senior Care in Katy TX

Fear of falling is a big deal for aging adults. It’s such a big deal, in fact, that her fear alone could make a fall more likely for your senior. Falls are extremely dangerous for aging adults and if your senior falls once, she’s twice as likely to fall again in the future.

Request a Medication Review

Medications and side effects from medication can be a big problem for your elderly family member. It’s a good idea for your senior’s doctor to periodically review her medications and make sure that she’s taking the right dosage and the right combination of medications. How your senior reacts to medications can change over time.

Ask Her Doctor about Exercise

Another good idea is for your senior to ask her doctor about whether she’s safe to start exercising. Regular exercise can help her to preserve muscle mass and can also assist with flexibility and balance, which are crucial for helping her to avoid a fall. As she feels stronger, her self-confidence also grows.

Get Her Vision Checked

When did your senior last see her eye doctor? Sometimes vision issues are a contributing factor to falls. Making an appointment with your elderly family member’s eye doctor can help her to figure out where her vision problems are and what might be able to resolve at least some of them.

Put Together a Fall Prevention Plan

A fall prevention plan looks at all of the various aspects of your senior’s life, including her environment, and helps your elderly family member to make changes that can help to keep her from falling. Senior care providers can be a huge help with creating a fall prevention plan. They can also assist your senior with tasks that have become a challenge for her, freeing up her time and energy to focus elsewhere.

Consider Talk Therapy

If your elderly family member is still feeling afraid of falling after taking steps to avert a fall, there may be more going on. Talking with a counselor or a therapist who can help her to get to the root issues may be another way to help. Your elderly family member might be reluctant to talk at first, but it really can help.

Avoiding a fall is a complex issue with a lot of possible solutions. Putting together the most comprehensive plan for helping your senior to avoid a fall is something that you’ll need to work to tweak as her needs change.

If you are considering senior care in Katy, TX, for an aging loved one, please call the caring staff at At Your Side Home Care. We will answer all of your senior care questions. Call today: (832) 271-1600.

Donna Wrabel, LMSW

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