Balance: If you don’t use it, you lose it!

Falling is the number one catalyst to sharp declines in health in the elderly. Therefore, it is only reasonable that maintaining our balance, and thus preventing the likelihood of falling, is essential to living a long and healthy life. Many of my clients are shocked that they have a hard time balancing on one foot with their eyes closed for 10 seconds. And these are not my older clients. These are my 60, 50, and 40 year olds. The simple truth is that our balance does decline with aging and if we are not training our balance, we will lose it. 

You may ask, why does balance decline with age? To answer that we need to understand a little more about balance. The human body is very intricate and relies on multiple systems in order to establish balance and physical equilibrium. To simplify it though, balance is essentially made up of 3 components: vision, vestibular system, and proprioception. Proprioception is defined as “the unconscious perception of movement and spatial orientation arising from stimuli within the body itself”. Simply put it is our “body awareness” that we receive from our joints, tendons, and muscles. The vestibular system lives in the inner ear and is about the size of a quarter. The vestibular system contains canals, bones, crystals, fluid, and specialized hairs and cells that sense our head position. Vision is our ability to interpret our surroundings through our eyes. All three of these systems are subject to age-related degeneration. A certain degree of that degeneration is a normal part of living life. However, there are many things that we can do to prevent the decline of these systems in order to maintain our balance into old age. 

Vision

The eyes are the windows to our health. Make sure to stay up to date with your optometry visits and keep prescriptions accurate. Not only will your optometrist be able to help with your vision, but can detect early signs of high blood pressure and diabetes.

Vestibular System

Vestibular issues can often be the result of an underlying illness, infection, or head trauma. It is imperative that the underlying issue is identified and treated. If you are suffering from symptoms of a vestibular disorder such as vertigo, dizziness, nausea/vomiting, and hearing loss then you should contact your physician immediately. 

There is also a common diagnosis known as vestibular hypofunction which is essentially a slow reaction time of your vestibular system which makes you feel like you have poor balance and equilibrium. A physical therapist can help you with exercises that will work on improving your vestibular acuity through training quick head movements and working on your static and dynamic balance.

Proprioception

Out of the three components of balance, this is the one that is the most plastic and susceptible to the reversal of age-related changes. We can improve our proprioception through improvements in our physical strength, stability, and flexibility. A physical therapist and/or a regular strength training routine can help you grow within these areas. 

This is also where cross-training and learning new sports/activities throughout our lifespan (whether it be picking up stand-up paddleboarding, learning how to swing dance, rock climbing, etc.) can help our bodies to adapt quickly when balance is required. 

Again, if you don’t train your balance, you will lose it. So let’s be the generation that keeps their balance into old age!  

Shannon Hall, PT, DPT

References

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3259492/

https://www.uclahealth.org/news/balance-begins-to-decline-as-early-as-age-50

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6873344/