Balance Workshop

Providing clear exercise guidelines to successfully improve balance and prevent falls
– a two-day workshop.

Evidence-Based Upper Limb Retraining after Stroke

Why should people not use their hands for support when doing balance exercises?

Evidence-Based Upper Limb Retraining after Stroke

Do walking aids prevent falls?

Evidence-Based Upper Limb Retraining after Stroke

How can therapists help people to ‘challenge’ their balance while being safe?

The workshop is run over two days and accepts 24 registrants.

Numbers are limited so that therapists can work with clients in small groups and receive feedback from the presenters during clinical sessions. The workshop focuses on analysis of balance, retraining of balance and falls reduction in any population of people that are at risk of falls. The clients will have problems with their balance, with a variety of diagnoses including neurological, orthopaedic and frailty.

Target Audience: The workshop will be of interest to physiotherapists, physiotherapy assistants and other health professionals from hospital and community based settings who work with people with balance problems.

Pre-workshop worksheets will be provided to the organising group for distribution to participants.

General Information

This balance workshop has been developed following the work by Professor Cathie Sherrington and colleagues that provided clear exercise guidelines to successfully improve balance and prevent falls. Despite this evidence, implementing these guidelines in clinical practice continues to be a major clinical challenge. Therapists have asked the StrokeEd collaboration about how to implement effective balance strategies that are challenging, of sufficiently high dosage and safe. This workshop aims to assist clinicians to develop evidence-based solutions for people with balance difficulties.

Who can attend?

The workshop will be of interest to physiotherapists, physiotherapy assistants and other health professionals from hospital and community based settings who work with people with balance problems.

Objectives

At the completion of the workshop, participants should be able to:

Define

balance, postural adjustments, kinematics, kinetics, task specificity

Discuss

the research findings for the characteristics of postural adjustments i.e. timing, task specificity

Describe

the changes that occur to postural adjustments with aging and neuropathology

Describe

the assessment and analysis of balance

Describe

the risk factors for, and circumstances which lead to falls

Discuss

the evidence for exercise interventions to improve balance and reduce falls

Set up

effective balance training for people with impaired balance

Plan

a group balance class that challenges balance and provides a high intensity of practice

Presenters

Karl Schurr
Karl Schurr
Clinical experience in stroke and brain injury rehabilitation for 30 years+ in Australia and the UK.

Dr Simone Dorsch
Dr Simone Dorsch
Simone has worked in neurological physiotherapy for 20 years, in traumatic brain injury and stroke rehabilitation. She has a Masters of Health Science…

Dr Kate Scrivener
Dr Kate Scrivener
Lecturer in neurological physiotherapy at Macquarie University. Kate works clinically as a rehabilitation physiotherapist at Bankstown-Lidcombe…

Workshop Timetable

Day One

Time Topic Format
8.00 Introduction Lecture
8.30 Balance research Lecture
9.30 Muscle actions in standing Practical session
10.15 Morning Tea
10.30 Postural adjustments Lecture and practical session
11.30 Video analysis of balance Small group work
12.30 Lunch
1.15 Principles of training Lecture, Video analysis
2.30 Afternoon Tea
2.45 Analysis and training with patients Clinical session
4.00 Discussion of clinical session
4.30 Finish

Day Two

Time Topic Format
8.00 Assessment of balance Lecture
8.30 Effect of ageing and neuropathology on postural adjustments Lecture
9.00 Falls – risk factors and circumstances Lecture and small group work
10.15 Morning Tea
10.30 Effective balance intervention Lecture and small group work
12.30 Lunch
1.15 Intervention – setting up a balance class Practical session
2.30 Afternoon Tea
2.45 Analysis and training with patients Clinical session
4.00 Discussion of clinical session and goal setting
4.30 Finish

Comments

Comments from our 2017 Calvary Balance Workshop:

Practical ways to implement training for different aspects of balance
Workshop was excellent.
Educators had a high knowledge of academic and practical application of neuro rehab

Practical philosophy of balance. What we can impact on and what is reversible
Revising balance assessment tools and really think of the implication of these tests
The greatest number of falls are due to uncontrolled centre of mass
First time there was a clinical session included into a course! It was brilliant