Still Standing Fall Prevention Outreach receives community award
Posted: May 4, 2015
On Thursday, April 30, A.T. Still University’s Still Standing Fall Prevention Outreach program was honored with Empowerment System’s Community Impact Award.
The award was accepted by Elton Bordenave, Still Standing program creator and director of ATSU’s Aging Studies Project.
Still Standing Fall Prevention – an initiative housed under the Aging Studies Project – has been a highly successful outreach program aimed at seniors in the community.
“The Community Impact Award acknowledges the contribution ATSU students and faculty members have made to effectively assist older adults in our community with the issue of falls,” said Bordenave. “The program improves the quality of life for seniors and helps our students gain valuable insights.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2007 Arizona ranked eighth in the nation for “unintentional fall-related deaths” among adults 65 and older.
Recognizing this issue, Bordenave employed A Matter of Balance in 2008 – a nationally-acclaimed, eight-hour training curriculum via the National Council on Aging. Each year, students from ATSU’s graduate health professions programs in physical therapy, physician assistant studies, occupational therapy, audiology, athletic training, and osteopathic medicine, who are interested in teaching Still Standing Fall Prevention Outreach, attend the course. By empowering students to deliver the resources to help prevent falls and falls injuries, they gain meaningful interaction, invaluable insight into the sociological, psychological and economic challenges of aging.
For eight years, students have fanned the Valley offering older adults the tools they need to prevent falls and to help them manage the fear of falling. Students work with participants for two hours a week over the course of two months.
Approximately 40 sites opened their doors to ATSU for the 2015 outreach including Banner Health systems, East Valley Adult Resources, Native Health and the cities of Fountain Hills, Phoenix, Scottsdale and Tempe. More than 100 students participated in this year’s outreach equating to 5,000 community service hours contributed.
“This is a population with which many of our future graduates will work as doctors, audiologists, physical and occupational therapists and other healthcare specialists,” said Bordenave. “The better they understand the challenges our older citizens face, the more productive and gratifying those relationships will be.”