Every year, nearly one in four adults age 65 and older fall.
Content source: Centers for Disease Control and PreventionHarmony Health
Fall Risk
We have a 5-point assessment program based on an FDA-cleared medical device that has been coupled with other diagnostic tools to allow for a specific transition of care. Our data will empower primary care physicians to know and understand the risks associated with their patient and be able to make rapid adjustments as needed.
We have a smaller, smarter, healthier medical technology that uses machine learning and data analysis as mechanisms to make diagnoses more consistent, personal, and effective, and seeks to transform lives.
Balance testing
Harmony pioneered mobile balance testing with our patented and FDA-cleared technology that uses nothing more than the mobile sensors built into a device. The Harmony platform allows for the rapid collection of data to better care for your members.
How it works
Harmony measures stability using the built-in motion sensors of any mobile device or tablet to quantify postural sway. While the device is pressed against the chest, a proprietary motion analysis algorithm calculates stability and provides an easy-to-understand value on a 100-point scale with 100 being completely stable and 0 being unstable. This FDA-cleared process uses a four-stage balance test coupled with various other validated testing components to assess risk for falling.
Reaction time
Reaction time is a measure of visual processing and neuromotor function. Harmony’s patented simple reaction time test allows for accurate measures of simple reaction time stimulus recognition and processing, followed by the initiation of a neuromotor response.
FREE was designed in response to the need for older people to have simple options that could be easily performed, acceptable, and sustained over the long term. The goal is to reduce falls and improve functioning in older people by slightly altering activities in ways that improve balance and strength while performing the activities of daily living.
FREE was not designed to be a traditional exercise program. Instead, it was designed to use a person’s daily self-care activities in a way that promotes strength and balance while aligning to the skills needed to prevent falls and improve balance.
OK…so let’s look at our three guiding principles for easy ways in which you can begin to gain balance and strength and prevent falls…and it’s FREE!
1. Embedding activities of daily living
Changing a habit is a great way to incorporate balance and strength activities into your daily living. FREE promotes creating new habits in creative ways.
- Do some balance and strength activities while performing your usual daily routines rather than exercising as a separate set of actions.
- Example: Unloading the dishwasher
- Behavior change: Doing multiple partial knee bends
- Result: The dishwasher still gets unloaded and you’ve completed a knee-strengthening activity.
2. Observing behavioral, situational, or environmental opportunities
Changing a behavior is easier than you think when you follow some practical suggestions. Being observant and seizing opportunities allows you to increasingly incorporate FREE principles as your awareness grows.
- Look for opportunities daily to elicit the desired behavior.
- Example: Standing at the kitchen sink, standing in a grocery store line, moving detergent to a lower shelf, moving cereal to a higher shelf.
- Behavior change: Bending your knees or going on your toes if reaching for something or while just standing.
- Result: You’re doing these activities anyway, so why not use this FREE opportunity to create a stable and enduring habit until it’s embedded as a daily activity.
3. Challenging yourself
Challenging oneself is the merging of mastery and upgrading. FREE is impactful when you continue to challenge yourself by constantly upgrading the level of activity you undertake for balance and strength and mastering the mindset to perform that activity with confidence.
- Look for ways to become autonomous in upgrading your activities and mastering independently.
- Example: The importance of walking with a proper stride, length, base, and pace.
- Behavior change: Standing on one leg gives you the potential to improve your walk as well as protect you from falling.
- Result: Everyone must walk, so why not walk with purpose? Think about the way you walk, scan ahead, and walk with confidence.
Community Resources
Every state has an Aging Services Division dedicated to providing frail seniors with home- and community-based services, so senior citizens can continue living in their own homes instead of having to enter a nursing home.
A wide range of state assistance programs are generally available to eligible seniors, including home health aides and skilled nursing care, home-delivered meals, help with household chores, and transportation to shopping and medical appointments, as well as counseling, advocacy, and legal aid.
In addition to these programs that help senior citizens directly, many states also offer caregiver assistance programs that provide family caregivers with information, counseling, and respite services.
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