Exercise plan to prevent sight loss-related falls

New research has been aimed at adapting exercise programmes to improve falls prevention among older people with vision impairments.

Teams from Glasgow Caledonian University, Northumbria University, Newcastle University and the University of Manchester have joined forces to establish whether confidence and strength-building exercise programmes, which help prevent falls in older people, can be adapted to help visually impaired people.

The main focus of the research, which has received a £463,000 grant from the National Institute for Health Research’s Heath Technology Assessment, will be to see if older people with sight loss are able to join in and stick with the exercise programmes, which researchers said were not easily accessed and attended by people with poor sight and blindness.