When was the last time you lay on the ground looking up at the sky?

As I mentioned in last months blog, around 30% of adults aged 65 years and over will fall every year. Did you know that older adults living in Australia are 5 times more likely to die from a fall than a motor vehicle accident! It’s that crazy serious! So, preventing falls is a really important thing to do at any age, but especially as we get older.

You may have had a fall in the last week, month or year and not been injured, that’s great to hear you weren’t injured. It really is important to try and avoid hospitals as much as you can. When you fell though, how did you go with getting yourself back up onto your feet?

Did you get up really easily and didn’t think about it again?

Did you need help from someone?

Did you use some furniture or a tree or something outside as leverage?

Over the last decade more than 10,000 Australians a year called for an ambulance because they had a fall, could not get up, but they were not transported to medical care because they weren’t injured. Depending on where you live, the cost of that ambulance could be anywhere between $500 to $1,000. That’s $10 million a year to help people get up from the floor because they can’t get up themselves. It’s money well spent because you don’t want to lie on the ground for too long after a fall, but what if we can do some things ourselves to avoid this happening to us.

As the title says, “When was the last time you lay on the ground looking up at the sky?”

If you can’t remember and are unsure whether you will be able to get up if you get down, I strongly recommend you wait for a family member or friend to come who can help you up should you need it. If you feel really confident then just make sure you have your mobile phone in your pocket so you can call someone living close by if you need to.

I am known as the safety officer in the family 😊 so now we have all of the safety caveats out of the way there are things to think about before you try this.

Some older people find when they kneel down their knees get really sore, often this might mean your quadriceps (thigh muscles) are not as strong as they should be and your knees are wobbling around a bit which makes them sore when kneeling. If this is the case for you try putting the couch cushions down or using a pillow on the floor for your knees, it should help.

You are now down on the ground, lying flat, smiling up at the sky or ceiling. There are ways we teach older people to get up but some of my research has found that there are many different ways older people like to get up and if you have a method that works for you and doesn’t hurt when getting up, then keep using that.

If you just don’t know where to start then perhaps consider this method, it’s called the backward chaining method because you are teaching yourself to get down on the floor and then get up the exact same way. Start standing, then move into a lunge or stride position, lower one knee onto the ground, from here stand back up again. If you find that easy, repeat and once you are kneeling on one knee again then move the second knee to the ground and put your hands on the ground too, so you are on all fours, again take those same steps to get yourself back up. Once you can do this easily then repeat but from all fours then lower to half sitting (on one bottom cheek), again go through the steps for getting back up. From half sitting move to side lying and again go through the movements to getting back up, then from side lying roll onto your back (your now fully down and looking at the sky) and move through the steps again to standing up.

Injury Matters is an injury prevention organisation in Western Australia and they have a great resource that shows you how to get up once you are on the ground using your knees (see picture below) or your arms (click here to access it). They also have many other great resources on falls prevention, it's worth having a look here.

Some people may think this is a bit silly to be talking about and will never happen to them so what is the point in all of this. Well one of my research participants summed it up beautifully:

I was looking after my husband for many years and he would fall over quite a lot, but thankfully he wouldn’t hurt himself. We would struggle together to get him up each time and eventually we would get there. My husband died last year and at the time I thought to myself, what am I going to do if I fall? I have no one here to help me. So, from that day forward I vowed to myself to practice getting up off the ground every Monday and I know should I fall and not hurt myself I will be ok because I keep my practice up.

So, ask yourself today, can I get up off the floor by myself?

If you are getting down and up from lying flat on the floor each week then just keep doing it!

Group activities like yoga and meditation are great for this because you are automatically getting down and lying on the ground relaxing.

If you can’t remember the last time you were lying flat on the ground (bed doesn’t count) and you have people around you to help you be safe, then give it a go. Here’s some tips to help you:

• Pick your favourite day of the week and do it on that day every week

• Even better, it usually takes most people no longer than 6 seconds to get up off the ground. Do it at the same time every day and I bet you find more benefits than simply getting up, the strength in your legs and arms might improve over time too

• It won’t be easy to remember at first so put a reminder in your phone to do it

• Consider linking it to something you do every day, for example do it just before or after you clean your teeth in the morning or just before your shower

• If you have grand kids, do it with them and make a game out of it

• If you have middle aged children, do it with them too and see how they go with getting up

• Change surfaces, do it at the beach or on the grass at a picnic in summer

• Do it indoors in winter

• Every now and then practice getting up starting from lying flat, but on your stomach, you may find you use a different method to get up.

If you make this part of your day, surely you have 6 seconds to spare 😊 then you are on your way to achieving another piece of the living independently puzzle.

Live the good life!