37 Balance

Warning sign indicating a rough walking surface, which isn’t a problem for animals with more stable body types, such as cats and dogs. Image Credit: National Park Service

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As an RN on MED floor, Jolene assesses each patient’s fall risk according to the Morse Fall Scale, provide a nursing diagnosis (ND) for fall risk, and implement fall precautions based on the ND. The human body typically operates in many positions that are not very stable and we  must constantly use our muscles to adjust our body position and counteract the tendency of our bodies to fall over. We often refer to this skill as balance. For the most part balance is subconscious, but watching a toddler who has just learned to walk will provide an amplified idea of how much actual work is required for humans to stay upright. Toddlers are especially unstable due to their disproportionately massive heads, and after this unit we will understand exactly why that feature so greatly affects their stability.


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Body Physics: Motion to Metabolism Copyright © by Lawrence Davis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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