Healthcare

Published on April issued in BioMed Central (BMC) Research Notes, a study conducted in healthy young adults found that patients with osteoporosis can be safely taught how to land from a fall in such a way that might prevent hip fracture.

Study author from Sint Maartenskliniek Research, Nijmegen, the Netherlands, Brenda E. Groen, MS, and colleagues point out that almost 90% of hip fractures are caused by falls.
The investigator noted a successful falls prevention program for healthy elderly people showed in martial arts fall training. Because they have high risk fracture if they fall, patients with osteoporosis would be expected get the benefits from those program.
However, for safety reason, the study team noted that this could not be directly assessed using persons with osteoporosis.

The investigator measured hip impact forces during fall exercise from a kneeling and standing position onto a 4-cm-thick polyurethane foam judo mat and a 25-cm-thick gymnasium mattress in 6 adults from 23 to 44 years old.
None the participants had prior experience with martial ars fall techniques. The fall exercises taught participants to turn a fall into a rolling movement by bending and twisting the trunk and neck.

For every condition, the researchers found that sideway falls from both a kneeling and a standing position met the safety criteria if performed on the thick mattress, whereas forward falls only met the safety criteria if performed from a kneeling position on the thick mattress.

Several limitation from this feasibility trials include small sample size and, therefore, lack of representation of all heights and weights. Similarly, use of young and healthy, rather than older and healthy, adults may have either over- or underestimated fall impact. Fall exercise performed by older adults would be less fluid compared with those and poorer muscle coordination, leading to an underestimation of impact.
However, older adults tend to be more cautious than younger adults, thereby leading to less impact velocity and overestimation of fall impact.

Ms. Groen concluded based on the basis basis of these feasibility results in young, healthy adults, that they believe the fall training would be safe for persons with osteoporosis if they wear hip protectors during the training, perform fall exercises on a thick mattress, and avoid forward fall exercise from a standing position.

In their report, the team conclude, “since martial arts technique reduce hip impact forces and can be learned by older persons, martial arts fall training may prevent hip fractures among persons with osteoporosis.”