Fall Prevention, Interdisciplinary

Your patients’ inability to maintain proper postural control and gait while performing other cognitive tasks predisposes them to falls. They need to avoid obstacles, recover from postural perturbations and walk symmetrically in order to stay upright.

Patients fall for a wide variety of reasons, so we recommend and teach an interdisciplinary approach to fall prevention that addresses the musculoskeletal, proprioceptive, oculomotor, vestibular and cognitive/communicative systems with specific therapeutic activities and exercises while emphasizing the foundational skills of timing & rhythm. By targeting the whole patient as you address the core deficit in neural timing, you work more efficiently toward the goal of preventing falls and greater functional independence.

Research consistently shows the benefit of integrating timing and rhythm into therapies aimed at remediating gait and hemiplegia. Yet, IM takes timing and rhythm to a whole new level with specific real-time feedback for millisecond timing throughout the training program to promote ever more precise timing, reciprocal movement, & gait symmetry.  For permanent change to occur following repetitive task practice, the following components are necessary & are provided by the IM program: 1) heavy emphasis on cognitive effort, 2) progression from stable and predictable to more variable exercises and activities that challenge a patient to adapt, 3) repetitive practice (beyond that typically attainable with traditional therapeutic exercise), and 4) intrinsic and extrinsic feedback. No other therapy modality allows the patient to walk freely while receiving real-time feedback about the quality of every step. 

Introducing the IM Fall Prevention Program!

You will learn practical tips and strategies to prevent patient falls, including how the Interactive Metronome can be incorporated by various professionals into rehabilitation programs to specifically address the root cause of conditions that contribute to increased falling. 

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