Dorothy’s story: Traumatic fall shows need for balance training
Falls are the leading cause of injury in New Zealand, so we’re investing into balance app Nymbl to address this. Grandmother Dorothy Fitzpatrick knows how important maintaining your balance is after suffering concussion from a heavy fall.
Dorothy Fitzpatrick is lying in agony. She is dazed, confused and in need of urgent medical attention.
In June 2021, the 78-year-old from Whangārei was walking through her front door when she tripped on the instep and went crashing down in a heap onto the concrete tiles.
“I remember going down and it was a terrifying feeling,” the Jamaican grandmother says.
Dorothy landed hard on her right shoulder and hit her head on the tiles.
“I was pretty dazed, and I was trying to figure out what had happened. I was lying there in pain, and I realised that I couldn’t move my arm,” she says.
“It was so painful and I was shouting for help, hoping that someone would hear me. I could feel that I had a big lump on my head.”
Luckily for Dorothy, her son and husband were home. They helped her up and took her to accident and emergency.
“It was a really scary experience because I didn’t know what I had done.”
Paying the price of falls
Unfortunately, Dorothy is not alone.
ACC accepted nearly 750,000 claims for fall-related injuries in 2022. These injuries came at a cost of $1.8 billion to help people recover.
The total cost of fall-related injuries over the past six years was $8.6 billion.
Falls are the most common cause of injury in New Zealand, accounting for 39 per cent of all ACC claims. Fall-related injuries most commonly occur in the home, and women are slightly more likely to be injured by falling than men.
Every year, one in three people over 65 injure themselves in a fall, rising to one in two once they reach 80.
Maintaining your balance with Nymbl
To address the impact of these fall-related injuries, we’ve launched a free balance app called Nymbl.
Nymbl is designed to help seniors stay steady on their feet, using dual tasking, combining simple body movements with easy brain games, like trivia, to challenge both the brain and body.
ACC has launched the app as part of its older people’s programme, Live Stronger for Longer, which is focused on preventing falls and fractures.
“Falls have a significant impact on a person’s quality of life, especially if the fall results in a fracture, so we want to do what we can to prevent them from happening in the first place,” says James Whitaker, ACC Injury Prevention Leader.
“We want to dispel the idea that falling over is part of the ageing process,” he adds.
“Most falls are preventable. We want to help New Zealanders to stay on their feet, enjoying their independence and living the life they want to live.”
The impact of a heavy fall
Dorothy knows first-hand the impact a nasty fall can have.
She was relieved when X-rays showed her right arm wasn’t broken and that she had only damaged the tendons in her shoulder.
But the worst was still to come.
She returned home with her arm in a sling and was feeling fine until later that night.
“My husband was cooking dinner and I was sitting at the dining table. I remember saying, ‘I don’t feel very well’ and then the next thing I knew I had passed out.”
Dorothy had suffered a delayed concussion from hitting her head on the tiles and, many hours later, she blacked out for a few minutes.
“I was in the ambulance and back to hospital again. The whole experience was very traumatic.”
Lending a hand on the road to recovery
It took Dorothy three months to recover from her accident.
ACC has played a leading role in her rehabilitation, including helping with physio twice a week, regular appointments with her doctor, specialist advice from an orthopaedic surgeon and also providing home help in her recovery.
“ACC have been a huge help to me,” she says.
“Just having everything covered was great and the home help was good because there were so many tasks around home that I couldn’t do, and that support was important.”
The orthopaedic surgeon said it was unlikely surgery would make a big improvement to her damaged shoulder.
“He described it as a ‘well-used ancient arm’,” she laughs.
‘You have to keep working on it’
Dorothy says her fall underlines the need to work on your strength and balance.
“It could have been much worse considering that I hit my head and I landed on concrete tiles,” she says.
“The fall had a big impact on my confidence. It had a big personal cost on me and my family, and took me a long time to recover.”
Dorothy has since found the Nymbl app very useful. She says you cannot afford to take your balance for granted.
“When I’m not using the app, I tend to stumble a bit more when I change direction or turn quickly, and that means I’m much more likely to fall over,” she says.
“You have to keep working on it. I’m getting back into it because I know it makes a big difference to my quality of life,” she adds.
“Since the accident, I’m more aware of obstacles when I’m walking and where I’m placing my feet. You take these things for granted until you have a fall.”
She is now back in the garden and playing with her grandkids, living the life she wants.
“Doing these exercises has given me the confidence to be able to live my life. I trust my balance more with Nymbl and I recommend anyone who is a bit older to put time into their balance.”
More information
More information is available on the ACC website.
