Understanding Dance for Falls Prevention

Falls are common among older adults, and can lead to both physical and emotional problems. The new World Falls Guidelines suggest that falls prevention programmes should take into account a person's individual priorities and beliefs. At the Older Persons Assessment Unit (OPAU), physiotherapy focuses on helping patients improve their abilities to do everyday tasks and enhancing their quality of life. Personalised treatment is offered to make sure it's as effective and long-lasting as possible. One of the main programmes run in the department is a class designed to improve strength and balance, but even people who complete these classes often struggle to stick to exercise when the classes end. Dance classes are a fun, creative, and social way to exercise, and OPAU has worked with Breathe Arts Health Research to explore dance as a treatment for older adults at risk of falls. So far, the results show that people who chose dance for strength and balance saw the same physical benefits as those who did the more traditional strength and balance exercises, but this evidence on its own isn't enough to widely recommend dance as a way to lower falls risk. To build stronger evidence for dance as a safe and effective activity for reducing fall risks, this project will explore how participants and dance instructors feel about the programme. It will also look at the different exercises in the dance sessions to understand what works best to help improve strength and balance and reduce the risk of falling.