What causes loss of balance and frequent falls?
Patient: I am a 60 year old female who has been having trouble feeling unbalanced. This has resulted in me having a concussion. On the most recent fall I broke two ribs and a third one has a hairline fracture. I can tell when these episodes are coming on so I have been able to hide it. I don t want to hide this I want to know why this is happening. Doctor: hi,as you mentioned you are 60 and having frequent falls due to balance issue. Then consulting a neurologist will be help, also he may ask for an MRI of the brain, as there needs to be checked out something if going pathologically dysfunctional.As most patients when fall into ageing there will be cerebellum dysfunction. As the demand of the body is high in maintaining the coordination and balance. also , with the help of the Neurological assessment it will come close to the actual cause of the balance and coordination problems.Once you are done with an MRI and Neurological assessment, you may be onto some medicine and also on a physical therapist.the physical therapist will teach how to learn the balancing activity and also to avoid falls.Also with age there is mass reduction in the strength of the Musculoskeletal system which needs an attention as falls might be dangerous at this age due to degenerative changes in the bone.Fracture are not good at this age , as the pain bearing capacity gets reduced and also the recovery time is delayed.by doing physical therapy the brain again learns the balance and coordination functions which allows to reduce the number of falls and also improve the overall health at this age.with the grace of God I wish you a speedy recoveryregardsJay Indravadan Patel