Falls remain a leading cause of injury among older Western Australians. Multidisciplinary collaboration is often required to address the needs of older adults and support their quality of life. Allied health and fitness professionals play a vital role in reducing falls risk in the community, particularly in improving balance, mobility and strength to prevent falls and support healthy ageing.
In June 2025, the Preventing Falls and Harm from Falls in Older People: Best Practice Guidelines for Community Care in Australia (Falls Guidelines for Community Care) were updated, providing clear, evidence-based recommendations to support older adults in community-based falls prevention.
With the Stay On Your Feet® Move Your Body campaign underway across Western Australia from 1 September to 30 November 2025, we encourage people working with older adults to review the Falls Guidelines and start implementing recommendations and good practice points for improving older adults’ balance and mobility. We have provided a brief summary below to help get you started on putting guidelines into practice.
Key recommendations for balance and mobility
- Encourage all older adults to engage in 2-3 hours of structured exercise each week. Exercises should incorporate balance, mobility and include strength training.
- Support participation of older adults with mild cognitive impairments to still participate in falls prevention exercises.
- Support older adults at low risk of falls (less than one fall a year) to attend community exercise or safely undertake home exercise.
- Provide tailored, supervised exercise programs to older adults who are more at risk of having a fall (1+ fall per year)
Putting the Guidelines into practice
Validated fall-risk screening and assessment tools can help predict and prevent falls. Screen to identify people at risk of falling and determine the level of intervention and support required.
Performing a falls risk assessment can determine whether an older adult is at a high risk of falling and guide the prescription of exercises to improve risk factors such as balance, mobility, and strength. Falls risk assessments also help establish a baseline for monitoring your clients’ progress. Any changes to an older person’s falls risk should be communicated clearly with the individual, their carers and family, as well as the broader multidisciplinary team.
Promote evidence-based exercises
Exercise prescription should be functional and appropriately challenging, incorporating exercises such as:
- Sitting-to-standing
- Squats
- Reaching while standing
- Standing with a narrower base of support
- Stepping and walking in different directions
As balance and mobility improve, encourage adding dual-tasking activities while doing exercises such as counting backwards in 3s, performing the alphabet backwards, or reciting a song.
Encourage exercise through community activities
Community involvement is also important, adding the benefits of social interaction to falls prevention. Support older adults to participate in structured group programs like:
- Tai Chi
- Group strength and balance classes
- Tennis
- Dancing
- Golf
- Lawn bowls
Access to learning
If you are in regional and remote areas, the Injury Matters free online learning modules support community, health, fitness, or allied health professionals to learn more about falls prevention in older adults, and how balance and strength exercises can reduce the risk of falling.
Watch the webinar hosted in partnership between the CRE in the Prevention of Fall Related Injuries, The Australia New Zealand Falls Prevention Society and Injury Matters. It explores the updated guidelines, their development and discuss their application across various care environments.
Fall prevention is everyone’s responsibility
Think of falls prevention as a life-course approach. Promote falls prevention as part of healthy ageing messaging, encouraging people of all ages to be active and build their balance and mobility, and strength.