4 Tips for Regaining Self-Confidence After a Fall
When we’re younger, a fall is often a minor incident that’s quickly forgotten – but for seniors, it can be a devastating shock. In fact, falls are the leading cause of disability and serious injuries in seniors, often leading to emergency room visits, surgery and lengthy healing times.
It’s easy to see how a fall can lead to a loss of self-confidence, but this fear can hold back their full recovery and lead to a long-term loss of independence. Here are four tips for helping seniors regain their all-important self-confidence from our assisted living community in Camden County, NJ:
- Acknowledge their fears. After a fall, don’t be surprised or dismissive if your loved one is fearful — it’s important to understand fear from their perspective if you want to help them move forward. From the pain of the fall itself, to the struggle to get assistance, time in a hospital and a painful recovery, there’s a lot of legitimate concerns that your loved one will have to overcome.
- Get professional assistance. Physical rehabilitation has come a long way in recent years, with new techniques for a faster, more effective recovery specifically designed with seniors in mind. With the right physical therapy, your loved one will be able to recover at a good pace and regain their strength, flexibility and stamina, keys to feeling more confident and independent.
- Remove fall risks. Living spaces can become hazardous as we grow older and our reflexes decline, so it’s essential to do a full audit of your senior loved one’s home to ensure risks for future falls are reduced as much as possible. Good ideas include increasing lighting, removing clutter (especially around stairs and walkways) and loose rugs, and installing grab bars in the bathrooms.
It’s also a good idea to set up some kind of emergency response system such as an app or device that your loved one can keep with them that will send an alert in an emergency situation. - Keep fit. It is easy to adopt a sedentary lifestyle as a senior — especially after a fall, but this can actually increase your loved one’s fall risk. Without regular physical exercise, the body experiences muscle loss, balance issues and even cognitive decline.
With a stronger, fitter body, future fall risks are greatly reduced, so ask your physical therapist about exercises your loved one can do after therapy has been completed and help them choose something they’ll enjoy, like nature walks, water aerobics, dancing or yoga.
Assisted living Camden County NJ – A Community That Cares About Senior Independence
Collingswood is part of the United Methodist Communities network of high-quality, non-profit assisted living communities specializing in independent living for seniors. With an experienced care and assistance team, scalable services customized to each resident’s needs, and a lively social calendar, we focus our community to provide essential resources that promote independence and quality of life.
To find out more about United Methodist Communities or our assisted living community in Camden County, NJ, please visit our website at http://collingswood.umcommunities.org/ or contact us and book your visit today.
