When evidence is not enough: the challenge of implementing fall prevention strategies.

Problem: As the evidence-based movement has advanced in public health, changes in public health practices have lagged far behind creating a science to service gap. For example, science has produced effective falls prevention interventions for older adults. It now is clearer WHAT needs to be done to reduce injury and death related to falls.

A public health approach to fall prevention among older persons in Canada.

In 2008 to 2009, there were 53,545 fall-related hospitalizations among Canadian seniors, accounting for 85% of all injury-related hospitalizations and 7% of all hospitalizations for those aged 65 years and older. The estimated cost of fall-related injuries to the Canadian health care system in 2004 was more than $2 billion among a population of 4.1 million seniors.

Plasticity of the association between visual space and action space in a blind-walking task.

Many experiments have shown that a brief visual preview provides sufficient information to complete certain kinds of movements (reaching, grasping, and walking) with high precision. This suggests that participants must possess a calibration between visual target location and the kinaesthetic, proprioceptive, and/or vestibular stimulation generated during movement towards the target. We investigated the properties of this calibration using a cue-conflict paradigm in which participants were trained with mismatched locomotor and visual input.