What actually happens at a falls assessment at home
About an hour, in her own lounge room, and mostly watching her move. A falls assessment is not an examination she can fail. It is a physiotherapist working out which of the fixable causes apply to her, in the house where the falls are actually happening.
Families are often surprised by how little of it looks clinical.
What she will be asked to do
- Stand up from a chair, a few times. Usually counted against thirty seconds, without using her arms if she can manage it. It is a rough measure of leg strength and the single most repeatable number in the whole visit.
- Walk a short distance, turn, and come back. The turn is the part being watched. Turning is where a lot of falls happen.
- Stand still in a few positions— feet together, one foot slightly ahead — with the physiotherapist close by.
- Walk to the actual bathroom, or the back step, or wherever she has felt unsteady. This is the part a clinic cannot do.
What gets asked, not tested
A good assessment spends as long talking as moving. Expect questions about previous falls and near misses, what she has stopped doing, medications, dizziness on standing, eyesight, footwear, and whether she is frightened of falling — which is itself a risk factor, because fear reduces activity and activity is what maintains strength.
The two-minute falls-risk check on this site uses the same eight screening questions a first assessment starts with, so it is a reasonable preview of the conversation.
What she should wear, and what to have ready
- Her normal footwear, plus whatever she actually wears around the house
- Her walking stick or frame, if she uses one, even reluctantly
- Her current medication list, including anything from the chemist
- Her glasses
- Comfortable clothes she can move in
You do not need to tidy. The rug that is a trip hazard is information, and a house cleaned up for the visit hides exactly what the visit is for.
Should you be there?
If you can be, yes — for the first one especially. You will hear the plan first-hand, and you will fill in the gaps she leaves out, because most older people under-report falls and near misses. If you cannot be there, ask for the summary in writing.
What you get at the end
A picture of which causes apply to her, with numbers where numbers are possible, a home exercise program pitched at what she can currently do, practical changes to the house, and anything that should go back to her GP or pharmacist.
The numbers are the part worth keeping. On their own they mean little. What matters is whether they are higher or lower in three months, which is the whole reason they get written down — and comparing them only works if the same physiotherapist is taking them the same way each time.
If she has been unsteady or has already fallen, why an elderly parent keeps falling covers the causes, and under Support at Home the assessment itself carries no participant contribution.