GRAND COLUMN
ROME HEALTH AND REHAB
Why Do We Fall? Where Amazing Things Happen with Rome Health and Rehab Text Michael J Simmons, MPT
CAUTION
48
V3 MAGAZINE MAY 2020 | READV3.COM
IN THE 2005 MOVIE BATMAN BEGINS, a young Bruce Wayne (aka Batman) and later an older Bruce Wayne, is asked on two separate occasions, “Why do we fall?” The answer given by both inquirers is “So we can learn to pick ourselves up.” Although this exchange was meant to inspire the character to persevere amidst failings and continue to strive to achieve, one can see the multitude of instances in the span of a human life where this applies. As a Physical Therapist who practices in the Long Term Care/Skilled Nursing Facility environment, my role in this context is geared primarily towards facilitating an individual’s ability to achieve and maintain biomechanical or physical balance. Throughout the course of my practice, I have often presented this very question to many of my patients. My goal being to both inspire the patient despite the impairment(s) they are suffering that brought them to my facility with the need for physical rehabilitation in the first place, and also facilitate understanding to the patient that the act of falling and learning to pick yourself up are normal and innate. Albeit, this physical process does indeed become more difficult as we age. Yet, it is instinctively engraved by design into our ability to survive and thrive as the apex species of this planet.