Balance
If you are over the age of 40, you may have noticed your physical balance isn't quite as good as it used to be. Not only can that be frustrating, but it can also be dangerous. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), falls are the second leading cause of injury related deaths worldwide, with an estimated 684,000 fatalities annually. In the United States we spend about 10 Billion dollars every year on health costs related to treating injuries from falls. The question is, why do people lose their balance as they age and can we prevent it or even regain it? Thankfully, the answer to both questions is yes.
Before you learn how to prevent loss of balance, you need to know how you balance in the first place. Balance is a complex process involving many structures including the skeleton, connective tissues, muscles, and the nervous system. If any of those structures is not functioning properly it could affect the ability to balance. Oftentimes weakness in one structure will affect another leading to a cascade effect. For example, if you have lost the arches in your feet, your feet will roll inward causing your lower leg to roll inward also. This leads to buckling of the knees which can affect balance. Another example would be a misalignment of the pelvis which throws off your center of gravity and increases stress to postural muscles important for balance. This can play out many different ways. The key is understanding what the function of all those structures is and what types of problems can lead to malfunctions in the balance process.
The first step we take as chiropractors is to evaluate what the condition of the skeletal structures are. Are there misalignments that need to be corrected? If so, this can affect center of gravity and also prevent the brain from communicating with the rest of the body efficiently. Second, we need to figure out if there are any reasons for the misalignments. Usually posture or repetitive movements are a major contributor to misalignments. Oftentimes, correcting the misalignments won't fix the problem until these postural issues are corrected because it leads to soft tissue memory. The muscles and or connective tissues have been trained to hold bones in bad positions. Not only do we need to correct the misalignment, but we need to stop the stress that led to it in the first place, otherwise we are spinning our wheels so to speak. Third comes retraining the muscles. We have to let the brain know what is expected out of muscles that have not been functioning properly. That takes time and repetition to create new patterns in the neural circuitry. Assuming that these structures are functioning properly, you could still lose your balance over time. That is because the average person loses about 1% of their skeletal muscle every year after the age of 40. If you aren't giving your body the right nutrients along with training your muscles the right way, your fast twitch muscle fibers will turn into slow twitch muscle fibers leading to an inability to contract fast enough, resulting in a loss of balance. You need the right amount of protein along with eccentric muscle strengthening exercises to promote the growth of fast twitch muscle fibers, which is our fourth step.
Yes, you can prevent loss of balance and even regain it if you've lost it. You just have to identify where the weakness in the process is and correct it. Whether that weakness is skeletal, connective tissue, muscular, or nervous system, Boggs Chiropractic is uniquely capable in helping you. Once those weaknesses are identified and corrected, then the process of retraining can take place. With time and determination, you can be in balance!
Yours for better health... Casey Boggs, DC