Summary

Falls efficacy refers to one’s judgement of self-abilities to prevent and manage falls. It is essential that interventions address the different aspects of falls efficacy in terms of balance confidence, balance recovery confidence, safe landing confidence and post-fall recovery confidence to improve their agency to deal with falls.

Evidence has shown that interventions addressing falls prevention can reduce the risk of falls in older adults. In our opinion, this is not enough. Reducing the risk of falls does not mean that falls will not occur. Globally, a third of older adults still experience a fall annually. Those who had a fall are known to have a higher risk of another fall within the year. Some falls are reported, but many go nonhighlighted because the impact of the fall may not warrant significant medical attention. Fall vignettes can affect falls efficacy which can lead to activity curtailment and activity avoidance. Suitable interventions should be introduced to regulate falls efficacy and maximize the quality of life for individuals.

Strength and balance exercises may be the most straightforward recommendation to help individuals prevent and manage falls. However, skilled clinicians and experienced researchers acknowledge the multifactorial complexity and adopt a person-centred approach when helping individuals develop their psychological and physical resiliency to deal with falls.

This research aims to advance the clinical reasoning processes and interventional approaches towards helping individuals to prevent and manage falls. That is, across the four different stages of falls (pre-fall, near-fall, fall-landing, and completed falls), novel strategies are explored to enhance the perceived ability of individuals to achieve several attainments, such as to perform activities steadily, to arrest falls in response to perturbations, to fall safely on the ground, and to get up from the ground.