Welcome ChiroSecure Facebook Live friends. Listen, I cannot thank you enough for joining us this year. This 2019 has been an absolutely fantastic year. Why? Because you joined us, you joined us on a monthly basis to come see what’s going on at the Foundation for Chiropractic Progress. Even better, was we went from 24,000 members, this year ending at 28,000. Those 28,000 that are out there, I cannot thank you enough from the bottom of the foundation’s heart for joining us.
Speaking of thanking, we have to give a major shout out to these corporate sponsors. They have been wonderful in being able to help us get that material out so that your time is based with the patient and not in producing marketing materials, so ChiroSecure, thank you. From all of us at the Foundation for Chiropractic Progress, without Facebook Live you wouldn’t be viewing this right now so we’re so very grateful.
Now, we have a jam packed opportunity to showcase January. I know, many of you are still in the holiday mood but let us get prepared so that we can relax in the holidays and know that January is all taken care of. As we go through, I first want to show you what is the title, and this is really talking about falls, our aging population and how they’re going to need help. What are the actual facts? The facts are every 20 minutes an older adult dies from a fall, and many more are injured.
Now, I know we don’t want to think about those kind of things but it’s real and it’s so important as chiropractors because we can prevent injuries and we can save lives just by talking and doing what we do best. 25% of older adults fall each year, that’s a large number, so I think we need to get involved as a community of professional healthcare providers to help those three million older adults that are going to be treated in emergency departments for fall related injuries.
Over 800,000 patients are hospitalized each year due to fall related injuries, oftentimes a head injury or a hip fracture so you can see the importance of what we’re going to talk about today. In fact, as I was preparing for this Facebook Live presentation, I had a very good friend call me and he said, “I’m coming into town and I’m doing so to take care of a loved one that has fallen.” He shared a picture of this individual and, unfortunately, two black eyes and a cut nose, and I just thought about how important it is for us as a group to talk more about falls and what it means.
What it means is $50 billion a year is the estimated cost of these accidental falls so you can see that it’s an important topic to really cover. We went through the facts but many consumers do not actually realize that as they age so does their balance, and so does their posture. Their vision changes as well and other aspects of their health will be effected so let’s talk about what that means and how do I prepare to help my seniors.
You can see this cute little grandma and grandpa roadmap visual there and those who we’re thinking of but let’s be honest, we’re all getting older and we all need to be aware of and proactive on what we’re doing with our posture, our balance, our stability, stretching, and functional outcomes that are so important for all of us regardless of our age. One thing I want to make sure that you understand is these marketing roadmaps are here to really help make it easy.
We present them during these Facebook Lives so that you can enjoy listening and getting ahead and starting on your marketing plan for January. The foundation’s theme is fall prevention and we want everybody to get involved. The monthly marketing roadmaps provide a week- by-week marketing guide and is designed for easy implementation for your staff or yourself. Your hands, like I said, should be on the patient’s and not producing more materials, so you want a little extra help put together a roadmap, this is the perfect opportunity to see it.
There’s so many one click postings to your Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram on here as well as you can stay active on your social media channels by downloading some more of the materials you’re going to see in just a moment. Use these foundation materials to populate your channels a minimum of three times per week. I know that sounds like a lot but sometimes you’re going to miss people and if you’re doing it three times a week I guarantee you’re going to get that evidenced based material that your patients and community need.
Moving on, let’s get you some handouts. These handouts that are created, this one particularly is a brand new tip sheet. We don’t want you to fall. To help educate your patients on optimizing their health and preventing falls, this tip sheet is a great start. It details that prevention is key. You want to consult with a doctor of chiropractic because you never know where this tip sheet’s going to go. It could go with a patient that has an elderly mother or father or family member and they bring it home and they learn about the current stats about falls and then some of the tips that you’re going to share with them to prevent the falls.
As we move forward, do we know actually what the three types of risk factors are for a fall? I want to dive into them very briefly today because I know it’s the holidays and you got better things to do so let’s just do a quick overview on what this is going to look like in January. Let’s dive in and you’re going to see that there is first and foremost the health based risk related to medical problems in neurology, orthopedics, biomechanics and some of the physiology and nutrition that happens, gait and balance problems, muscle weakness, chronic illness.
All of these, especially vision can become a problem, so we want to look at those. The other one is environmental factors. Yes, these are where the patient, for example, in this particular picture here is just walking the dog on the leash. The dog goes left, the leash goes right, and all of a sudden he’s chasing something and you are down. Okay. Walking into your living room is another one. Sometimes you can catch that corner of the couch and boom, you’re down. We’ve all been there somewhere in either our bed or a couch or a chair in the dining room. Those are environmental falls.
How about fall triggers? These are the ones that are health related, like the use of certain medications. If you haven’t done this yet, become friends with your pharmacist in your communities. Also, make sure the patients are friends with their pharmacist. Oftentimes as they age, they’re going to have multiple medications and the best person to ask about medications, their pharmacists, so become friends with them. These medications, maybe there’s excess alcohol involved, they can cause problems for falls so we want to get really into helping the patient find resources in their community, one obviously being their pharmacist.
Remember that things like low blood sugar, hypoglycemia or diabetes, hypertension, electrolyte imbalance, dehydration, can become a problem for balance and they all trigger opportunities for falls. Then you can educate them. Infographics are a beautiful way to do that and you can see here preventing falls in older adults is a big part of January’s push where they can get frequent information from you.
It’s really succinct that they can share on their social media as well and there is a plethora here. They’re easy to digest graphics and I think that once you see how you can use them, whether it’s on your newsletter, maybe it’s on your website or you’re handing them out at the front desk, it’s just open to whatever you feel comfortable doing.
What is the chiropractor’s role in preventing falls? As a doctor of chiropractic you can actually help to improve balance, stability, and range of motion. We’ve been doing this for 125 years, we just haven’t succinctly made it available on social media platforms. We’re talking about optimizing health, managing joint pain and decreasing an individual’s fall risk is all of what we do. As we start to look at chiropractic’s role in fall prevention, I want to make sure that doctors of chiropractic are evaluating a few things.
Number one, when you’re evaluating fall risks you’re talking to the patient about their fall history. We want to recommend strength and balance exercises. Most of us are already doing this. We want to talk to it on why balance is important for the patient. Then we want to offer tips on how to improve home safety. A lot of those are very simple, it’s just looking around your house and looking for cords that are sticking out and bat maths that aren’t properly secured; all of those and more that you can talk to your patients about.
How to help your patients? Screen them. There’s a opportunity for you to sharpen your skillset and conduct those clinical assessments but start by regularly asking your patients on what’s happened in the past. Fall histories are very important. In fact, when a patient has a history of falls we need to really dig down into why. Assess your patients by conducting your gait, strength, and balance test, Identifying those medications that may actually increase their fall risks and. Then look through their home environment and potential home hazards that they feel that might be important for them to deal with.
If you want to know more about fall risks and how to ensure that you’re getting the most out of talking to your patient, here is the link. One of them will provide you with the CDC top quality information so that you can have an assessment for the patient to fill out. You’re looking at what the CDC is asking healthcare providers to do, and I think you’ll feel very comfortable because it’s not something we’re not already doing. We’re just packaging it and we’re being a lot more proactive in helping our aging population be successful and avoid those horrific falls that can happen.
Now, we got to make it easy for you so exercise handouts are part of it. We have put together a handout for patients to reference regarding different exercises. This is just a tip sheet for them to start the conversation. I’m sure that you have hundreds in your office, feel free to use whatever works for you. This is just a nice easy where we can talk about muscles being stronger, working on your balance, and this is going to help them with endurance.
A long day, for example, for someone who’s aging, can cause weakness and weakness can create the unfortunate misstep. Sometimes we just can’t see that misstep happening because we’re weakening and when we talk about it, when we share it, it’s going to be very important. A nice tip sheet like this might be perfect for you to hand out in the new year or put on your website. You’re welcome and I encourage you to do your own YouTube videos and put them on your website.
The community sees you as the expert, they trust you, they trust your care, and the foundation is simply here to provide the resources to make you successful so your hands are on the patients so look at that, look through the link. Now, there’s a lot more to this and I want to share more with you so if you could please put in your schedule, look at that link, you can go to our Facebook and register for it. Everybody’s welcome. If you’re not a foundation member, consider it because there are so many more pieces that you can get for your practice including a presentation.
I want to make sure that you get lined up to register for this particular Falls: Chiropractic is Key and Fall Prevention Among Seniors so you get a little bit more information. As we go through, I just wanted to say, a merry, merry holiday season to all of you, you’ve been absolutely fantastic in your support for the foundation. We couldn’t have done it without you and we know that your time is extraordinarily valuable so we want to make sure that we make the best of every moment that we have together. I can assure you, next year is going to be fantastic.
125 years of chiropractic success, ready for us to just pull it in and market like crazy because the more the patients know about what we do, the more patients will want and seek chiropractic care as a benefit to optimizing their health. I want to wish all of you a very happy new year. 2020 is our year, we’re going to take advantage of it, and I look forward to seeing you in January for our Facebook Live next year. Take care.
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