Do you think the weather affects how steady you are? How do you tell? And what difference would it make to your risk of experiencing a fall?

Although common sense might suggest that more people experience falls in the winter months, the data collected on falls in the United States doesn’t support this. Falls – at least reported falls – are spread evenly across the year.

Several factors go into whether someone falls or not, both external conditions (e.g. icy pavement) and internal ones (e.g., physical capability). Understanding your internal condition and how and when it fluctuates can help you better manage challenges from the external conditions you experience.

We were intrigued by a small study that tracked balance using ZIBRIO technology over the course of a year and discovered some significant variations. The individuals in the study were aged 75-90, a mix of men and women. As with the national data, the rate of falls didn’t change much month by month, but their balance did.

The month where people experienced the best balance was July, and the worst was October. A 10% reduction in balance score may not mean someone’s fall risk category (high, medium, low) necessarily changed, but it was interesting that everyone experienced lower balance scores in October.

A strong body of research shows that the daily amount of activity and sleep that people get has a big effect on their balance. It’s possible that changes in the weather impacted the type of activity that participants did.

Test Yourself

The study didn’t investigate why people experienced changes in their balance, but this is an experiment you can conduct on yourself. Measure your balance: how much does your balance change from month to month? Do your exercise patterns change with changes in weather, or other changes in your life? Do longer days in the summer make a difference to you? How?

Access to safe areas to exercise in either icy winters or high heat in the summer can play a crucial role in how easy it is to maintain sufficient exercise to keep your balance strong. Just as increasing exercise can have a positive effect on your balance in a few weeks, so a period of sedentary behavior will have the opposite effect and your balance will start to decline.

While it can be sensible to reduce exposure to dangerous conditions – like icy pavements – it is also very important to keep up muscle strength and stimulate your balance system so that your body continues to be able to adapt to changing external risks.

The months, ranked best to worst for balance, as recorded by this small group is as follows:

Ways to work on your balance, no matter the weather:

Cold / Icy Weather

• Protect yourself: wear well-fitting sturdy shoes when outside, use handrails, avoid going outside in the dark or poor lighting

• Improve balance: Try a new exercise class – Rumba or dancing, build leg strength with sit-stand exercise, massage the soles of your feet

Perfect Outside Weather

• Protect yourself: Pay attention in new areas for unexpected hazards, take care of uneven surfaces in familiar places, where you may not pay as much attention, take your time when moving around.

• Improve balance: Try parkour for seniors (experiment with moving your body more like a child does, moving over, under and through obstacles), try walking poles for an all-body workout, take up pickleball

Very Hot Weather

• Protect yourself: stay hydrated- dehydration can lead to weakness and dizziness, if exercising outside, try early mornings or later in the day when the sun is not so hot, make it a group activity so you can look out for each other

• Improve balance: move inside. Try basketball or badminton, join a gym class, add a few minutes of sensory motor training to your everyday routine that you can do anywhere

Want to share your experience of measuring balance? Let us know your story by emailing support@zibrio.com

Learn more about the science of precision balance measurement here.