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Afraid of Falling? For Older Adults, the Dutch Have a Cure

2018-01-04 45 Dailymotion

Afraid of Falling? For Older Adults, the Dutch Have a Cure<br />Today, 18.5 percent of the Dutch population — roughly 3.2 million people — is 65 or older, according to official statistics.<br />Like many people her age, Hans Kuhn, 85, worried that her daily routine —<br />and the ability to live alone — would end if she ever lost her balance and fell.<br />There was the “Belgian sidewalk,” a wooden contraption designed to simulate loose tiles; a “sloping slope,”<br />ramps angled at an ankle-unfriendly 45 degrees; and others like “the slalom” and “the pirouette.”<br />They were not for the children, though, but for a class where the students ranged in age from 65 to 94.<br />Yet falling courses — especially clinically tested ones — are a fairly recent phenomenon, according to Richard de<br />Ruiter, of the Sint Maartenskliniek in Nijmegen, the foundation hospital that developed this particular course.<br />Across the Netherlands, 3,884 people 65 or older died as result of a fall in 2016, a 38 percent increase from two years earlier.<br />“It’s not a bad thing to be afraid of falling, but it puts you at higher risk of falling,” said Diedeke van Wijk, a physiotherapist who runs WIJKfysio<br />and teaches the course three times a year in Leusden, a bedroom community just outside Amersfoort, in the center of the country.<br />“But there is also a very important social aspect.”<br />Indeed, seeing one another helplessly sprawled across the gym mats gave way to giggling<br />and plenty of dry comments, knowing jokes, general ribbing and hilarity.

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