By Simon Peter Lokomo, MPH — Public HealthLast reviewed: July 2026 Match the device to how much support your parent actually needs. A cane helps balance and takes about a tenth of the weight off one sore leg. A walker carries real weight and needs both hands. A rollator, the four-wheeled kind with a seat,…
By Simon Peter Lokomo, MPH — Public HealthLast reviewed: July 2026 For someone living at home, no. The trials found no benefit, and if anything a slight increase in fractures. For someone in a nursing home, probably a small reduction, though the effect shrinks to nothing when the weakest studies are removed. And in nearly…
By Simon Peter Lokomo, MPH — Public HealthLast reviewed: July 2026 No high-quality study shows that medical alert systems reduce death or hospital admission, and they do not prevent a single fall. What the evidence supports is narrower but real. If the device is worn, and if it is activated, it can shorten the time…
By Simon Peter Lokomo, MPH — Public HealthLast reviewed: July 2026 An Area Agency on Aging is a local public agency that connects people over 60 to services in their own community: meals, rides to appointments, help in the home, caregiver support, and falls prevention classes. There are more than 600 across the United States,…
By Simon Peter Lokomo, MPH — Public HealthLast reviewed: July 2026 Do Bifocal and Multifocal Glasses Increase Fall Risk? What Older Adults Need to Know Yes, and by more than most people expect. Older adults who wear bifocals, trifocals or varifocals are roughly twice as likely to fall as those wearing single-vision lenses, because looking…
By Simon Peter Lokomo, MPH — Public HealthLast reviewed: July 2026 Noticing a Decline in an Ageing Parent After a Visit? Signs to Watch For and What to Do Next Look at the complicated things first, not the obvious ones. The tasks that fail earliest are managing money, medications, cooking, shopping and transport, while bathing…
By Simon Peter Lokomo, MPH — Public Health Last reviewed: July 2026 How to Get Up After a Fall: A Safe Step-by-Step Guide for Older Adults Do not rush to stand. Stay still for a minute, then check for injury before moving at all. If you hit your head, or anything hurts sharply when you…
By Simon Peter Lokomo, MPH — Public HealthLast reviewed: July 2026 Nighttime Bathroom Falls in Older Adults The walk to the bathroom at 3 am stacks several risks on top of each other at once. The person is half asleep, the room is dark, blood pressure drops sharply on standing after hours lying down, and…
By Simon Peter Lokomo, MPH — Public Health Last reviewed: July 2026 Fear of falling is not an overreaction, and it is not harmless either. Between 20 and 60 percent of older adults living at home report it, and many of them start doing less because of it. That is where the trouble begins. Moving…
By Simon Peter Lokomo, MPH — Public HealthLast reviewed: July 2026 Are Bed Rails Safe for the Elderly? Not for most older adults, and especially not for anyone with dementia. Bed rails have never been shown to reliably prevent falls, and they carry a documented risk of death. Federal regulators recorded 284 entrapment deaths from…