3 ways to minimize your own risk of falling like Pelosi and McConnell

Each year, one out of every four Americans 65 years of age and older falls, leading to millions of emergency room visits and 1 million fall-related hospitalizations

David N. Bernstein, MD, PhD, MBA, MEI is a resident physician at the Harvard Combined Orthopaedic Residency Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Boston Children’s Hospital and a Senior Researcher in health care transformation at Harvard Business School. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter): @DNBernsteinMD.

At the time, I found his frequent comments on not falling to be a bit odd, but as an orthopedic surgeon amid my final years of training, I now fully appreciate Dr. Koop’s point. In fact, I see it every day in our hospital emergency department – an elderly person falls and her life, as well as the lives of her loved ones, is changed forever. It is shockingly common, and recently we have witnessed two older members of Congress, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Mitch McConnell, fall, with the former Speaker reportedly sustaining a hip fracture.