I reported all my falls to the neurologist and he said, “Yoga.”
This is not the first time he has recommended yoga. This is not the first time I have considered yoga. I have purchased three yoga mats and then purged three yoga mats years later.
He says that it will help me with my balance. The most recent fall was because of my shoes, not balance, but maybe if I had good balance I could have wrenched my body back upright as I was tottering over.
I know that sometime in between my first try at yoga 25 years ago and the next time, 15 years ago, people began talking about one’s “core”. I went ahead and looked up what a core is, because yoga is going to make me more aware of my core.
It appears my core is my waist and the rest of my torso down to my nethers.
So I’m going to bulk that up, evidently. I’m not buying a yoga mat though: that seems to be where it goes wrong.
3 responses to “Yoga”
There’s also balance perturbation training, which is basically a PT making you get slightly off-balance and having you recover yourself, but yoga is waaaay cheaper. Balance! and recovering balance! and muscle strength and flexibility! and yes, the core …
KC – But that rebalance thing sounds like a better short-term answer.
It’s honestly really, really neat. They do it either with ceiling harnesses, so you cannot actually fall if you fall, if you’ve got osteoporosis or other bone-break-y risk, or with padding so if you fall you’re less likely to get hurt, or with rails you can grab if you can’t recovery your balance fast enough. There are machines that wobble precisely, or things that are like a pogo ball, or balance-beam-like things, or balance boards, or loose weights that wobble, or the PT can just … shove you or bounce a ball off you to get you to experience the off-center-ness and recover from it. But it’s pretty rare to find a PT who knows how to do it and can do it, unfortunately. (esp. unfortunate given the *really good* results in reducing subsequent falls after an initial fall in the elderly, and its really good effects for people who have had a stroke)
Of all the things, a balance board is probably the only one you can use at home (unless Gary would be up for throwing a yoga ball at you while you try to walk on a line), and a balance board only provides one specific type of “issue” for you to resolve (you do not get the “I tripped and need to recover” type of self-recovery-rebalancing), but it’d still be something, if your doctor approves, and it’s good for The Core.
Yoga does require a lot of balancing in odd positions, though! and is effective at reducing fall risk according to studies, especially when it is balance-focused yoga. and it’s available everywhere, so there is that.