Many falls among elderly due to inner-ear imbalance

From a Time Magazine report at the link below:

A simple fall is one of the most dangerous traumas the elderly face: one-quarter of older Americans who suffer a hip fracture after a fall die within six months of the injury.

But what exactly causes so many people to fall, and thus how best to prevent such spills, has long evaded the medical establishment.

Now a new study conducted by Johns Hopkins researchers offers potentially lifesaving clues. Looking at data from the National Institutes for Health, researchers found that an estimated 35% of Americans over the age of 40 — roughly 69 million people — suffer from vestibular dysfunction, or as it is more commonly known, an inner-ear balance disorder.

By age 60 and older, the data showed, inner-ear imbalances strike more than half of all Americans.

More of the story here.