Fall Prevention

Olympic gold medalist Picabo Street, 1998 winner of the downhill in Nagano, once told a reporter, “Fear is the number one enemy when you’re racing; when you’re afraid your center of balance is back, which is very detrimental to your health.” Detrimental, indeed. Scientific studies have found that, along with increasing the risk of falling and serious injury, fear of falling in daily life leads to activity restriction, a loss of independence, reduced quality of life, and an increased chance of…

“I had no idea what I was getting into when I signed up for class!” Karen, a participant in a recent Minding Your Balance™ class, went on to say that she thought the training would involve things like standing on one leg and core strengthening exercises — a reasonable expectation given that we tend to think of balance as a strictly physical endeavor. While balance obviously is physical (and standing on one leg does take place in classes), balance involves more…