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A Village Approach to Reducing Falls for
Visually Impaired Older Adults
Newswise, May 24, 2011 — For older adults, a
fall can pose a serious health risk. Add in
blindness or visual impairment, and the
possibility of a fall increases. The
approach of “it takes a village” can be
applied to reducing the risk of a fall.
Cross-disciplinary fall prevention programs
that address multiple risk factors have been
shown to be effective.
An article in
the current issue of the journal Insight:
Research and Practice in Visual Impairment
and Blindness describes an integrated
risk management program with multiple
interventions.
Interventions pertaining to 1) education, 2)
medical assessment, 3) exercise and physical
activity, and 4) home hazard assessment and
modification have proven successful in
reducing falls.
Another aspect essential to fall prevention
is to strengthen collaboration across
medical and rehabilitative services, public
and private agencies, and providers who
focus on issues of aging.
Practitioners in various fields who are
concerned with preventing falls among older
adults need to be aware of issues related to
medical, functional, and rehabilitative
aspects of blindness and visual impairment
as they pertain to fall prevention.
Falls are usually caused by more than one
factor. For instance, poor vision can lead
to decreased physical activity, which in
turn brings about loss of strength in the
limbs, thereby increasing the risk of a
fall. Recognizing the many factors that
contribute to a fall can aid in designing
effective integrated interventions.
The American Geriatrics Society recommends
that older adults with high risk factors of
falling undergo a fall risk assessment. This
assessment can identify unique factors
associated with blindness and visual
impairment in late life that could lead to a
fall.
Among other things, a medical assessment
intervention can identify relationships
between vision and other health dimensions.
While it is important to maintain physical
activity, balance exercises specifically are
more effective in preventing falls.
Another part of these interventions is
training visually impaired older adults to
safely perform activities of daily living,
and converting or adapting home environments
to make everyday tasks easier while reducing
accidents and supporting independent living.
Full text of the article, “Fall-Prevention
Interventions for Persons Who Are Blind or
Visually Impaired,” Insight:
Research and Practice in Visual Impairment
and Blindness, Vol. 4, No. 2, Spring 2011,
is available.
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About Insight: Research and Practice in
Visual Impairment and Blindness Insight:
Research and Practice in Visual Impairment
and Blindness is a quarterly journal in the
field of education and rehabilitation of
persons of all ages with low vision or
blindness. The journal features excellent
research that can be applied in a practical
setting as well as best practice examples
that contain enough detail to be implemented
by other practitioners. The journal reports
on informative and helpful practices,
research findings, professional experiences,
experiments, and controversial issues. It is
the official publication of the Association
for Education and Rehabilitation of the
Blind and Visually Impaired (AER). To learn
more about the society, please visit:http://www.aerbvi.org.
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