Falling Down

So my neighbor’s folks were late to Sunday supper this week because they were waiting for each other at the apple farm, sitting on benches maybe 15 feet apart pointed in opposite directions…dad having fallen asleep from one too many cider donuts. I love fall. There’s the leaf jumping, apple crisp and college football, the pumpkin seeds, bulky sweaters, and gramma’s mashed potatoes. There’s the Fall guy and the Fall of the Empire, Niagra and Tacko Fall, that 7’6” basketball player. There’s Fall Out Boy, falling in love and Fallen, that great Sara McLachlan song. But would you believe it, some people don’t like fall, even though they keep doing it. Some are just clumsy like me, some like Janice fall because their husbands fail to adjust the bike seat. Others have cataracts or glaucoma or live in the icy north, but many are older folks with dementia or weaker bones or malnourishment, for whom falls are as common as Uncle Bobby blaming me again for “deleting the internet” because I removed the shortcut to his browser. My dad has fallen a few times – once hospitalized – while my mother-in-law has fallen some 5 times since turning 80 that we know about, most of which have landed her in the hospital. What’s underappreciated about falls – the cause isn’t what you think. We once studied 65 seniors who had fallen and needed inpatient rehab only to learn that some 39 of them had lost a spouse, never really grieved and became sedentary. They fell into their spouse’s habits and into a health spiral. So if you are in healthcare and see seniors, take note not just of what’s happening inside their body but what’s going on inside their home and their heart.