Quick reminder: be sure to vote tomorrow and be sure to check in with any seniors you know to offer assistance in getting to and from the polls.
Falls become more common for all of us as we grow older. The increase in falls for seniors is not all related to loss of muscle strength, but to the steady decline of some of the contributors to good balance: vision, proprioceptors on the bottoms of the feet that communicate position information to the brain, and tiny hairs in the semicircular canals of the inner ear that relay gravity and motion information to the brain (who knew ear hair was good, right?).
There is a simple exercise you can do to test your capability for balancing (and it is more difficult than you might think it should be regardless of your age): Stand with your eyes closed and lift one foot up, bent at the knee in front of you (as if taking an exaggerated step up) and hold it for 15 seconds. Then try it for 30 seconds. If you can do this, you are in great shape and all is in balance!
The Anti-Aging Plan book discusses this and more, based on many lessons the physcian for the Biosphere team and his daughter learned in Biosphere 2.