Table of contents:
- What affects the balance of the human body?
- Why do parents fall more often?
- Why do some young people fall so often?
Everyone falls at least once in their life, whether it's slipping on a wet floor that's been mopped or turned away tripped over a hole in the asphalt of the road. Even though a slip is usually associated with the negligence of small children, it turns out that as we get older, the chances of falling often multiply. What worries him even more, this process has even started around the age of 25 years, it gets worse after 40 years.
Oops! What's the reason, huh?
What affects the balance of the human body?
The human body is basically created unstable. This is related to posture and height. Maintaining an upright position and speeding moving from place to place while remaining balanced is an endless amount of hard work for the body. Our success goes smoothly without falling, depending on our physical health and the combining of the different systems in our bodies.
In order for us to maintain balance, there are three main systems that play a role in providing various sensory information about the condition of the body, gravity, and also the situation of the surrounding environment. The three systems are visual (eye), vestibular (ear), and somotosensory (feedback reaction from the joints of the body's moving organs).
In order to maintain the balance of the body, the brain must be responsive in integrating, processing, and storing all sensory information from the three systems, and this is done continuously without stopping. This subconscious process then creates motor responses and a programmed muscular system based on experience to shape our daily movement patterns.
A fall occurs when the body and brain are overwhelmed by the demands of maintaining their posture. A fall can occur when your body's movement patterns become disturbed or change suddenly as a result of an unexpected danger - for example, when you trip over a gravel. Or, a fall can occur when your skeletal alignment is messed up and your attempts to correct it are delayed, inadequate, or inaccurate - for example when you are pushed from behind by a nosy friend.
As it turns out, chances of falling frequently are more likely to occur later in life - and it's not just a matter of neglect.
Why do parents fall more often?
This is evidenced by a team of researchers from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Hospital in an experiment involving 105 people aged 18-80 years. After the participants took various physical tests and balance tests, the study results reported that the minimum tolerance threshold for the vestibular system in people aged 40 years and over increased dramatically.
The ventribular system is a complex system in the inner ear that functions like a GPS navigator, to detect the orientation of the body in a room based on head movement and position, such as when we are sitting, standing, sleeping, and so on. This system then collaborates with the brain and eyes to regulate balance, coordination and control of body movements.
Generally, the lower a person's vestibular threshold, the better the body's balance is. Thus, if this system breaks down or the threshold increases, we will look like a drunk person, wobbly and fall easily.
As we get older, the subconscious process for maintaining body balance may not work as well or not as fast as it used to. In other words, your brain's cognitive acuity is dulled. As a result, maintaining balance may require even greater mental concentration, the effects of which can prove tiring.
Decreased brain cognition can also limit your ability to multitask. This is why you may notice that older people often suddenly stop walking while they are talking - reflecting this difficulty.
In addition, aging also decreases the quality of sensory information provided by the three balance systems of your body. Poor vision, coupled with glare-prone eyes and poor depth perception of visual dimensions. This can cause you to misinterpret the location of the floor, or to mistake the distance, which can make you fall more easily.
The normal somotosensory feedback from your joints to the brain is also reduced because flexibility also decreases with age. Chronic disease in the weight-bearing joints (hip and knee), such as arthritis, can cause foot placement errors. Meanwhile, misaligned footwork patterns, sore feet, and / or the habit of wearing poor quality shoes can lead the brain to misjudge information signals about the characteristics of your ground contact when you walk.
Why do some young people fall so often?
All the body changes associated with aging will certainly increase the chances of frequent falls. But make no mistake, these natural body changes can occur more quickly in young adults who are trapped in a sedentary lifestyle, aka lazy to move.
Life is completely lazy, aka lazy to move, over time it causes a decrease in physical strength and bone density, so that the body's balance is more easily shaken. This bodily weakness also makes it take us longer to get up from falling. Again, this is due to decreased brain function, due to lack of physical activity.
