Listening Time — 29:25
Falls are common among the older adults. However, cancer survivors experience falls more often than people who haven't received cancer treatment. Even worse, problems related to falls may be more likely and extensive in cancer survivors.
The good news, though, is that cancer survivors are not doomed to sustain such injuries in falls. In fact, there's much that can be done to reduce the risk of falling. Both education and taking proactive steps to reduce falls is important.
In this episode, physical therapist Elizabeth Hile discusses falls risk in cancer survivors. She shares about red flags to heed and how physical therapy and certain community resources can help.
Learn more about cancer-related falls.
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Elizabeth Hile, PT, PhD, is a board-certified clinical specialist in neurology, assistant professor of rehabilitation sciences at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences (OUHSC), and director of the Cancer Rehabilitation Science Program at the National Cancer Institute-designated OUHSC Stephenson Cancer Center. Her active teaching, research, and clinical service focus is on cancer survivorship, specifically the detection and management of accelerated aging syndromes in cancer, including falls, sarcopenia, and neuropathy. Her team designed a prospective surveillance model for imbalance and falls in breast cancer survivors that they are now expanding to bone marrow transplant candidates, and survivors of gynecologic and gastrointestinal cancers.
