Regaining Confidence on Their Feet: Balance & Fall‑Risk Rehab with Katherine Reardon, DPT
Living Well Center for Integrative Health – Essex Junction, VT
Case Study: Feeling Steadier on Their Feet – Balance and Fall Risk
Clinician: Katherine Reardon, DPT
Patient: 70-year-old Essex Junction resident
Primary concern: Worsening balance and fear of falling, especially on uneven ground
About Dr. Katherine Reardon
Katherine, a California native, completed her Doctorate in Physical Therapy from the University of the Pacific in 2019. Prior to that, she attended California State University Stanislaus, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Kinesiology, concentrating on Health and Wellness Promotion.
Before Working with Living Well
This patient came to Living Well Center for Integrative Health after noticing increasing unsteadiness during daily activities and neighborhood walks. They were especially worried about uneven sidewalks, small curbs, and grassy areas, and had started avoiding certain routes out of fear of falling. Exercise-based programs that focus on balance, gait, and strength are strongly supported in the research for reducing falls and improving mobility in older adults living in the community.
Evaluation and Goal Setting
Katherine began with a detailed assessment of the patient’s gait, balance, lower-extremity strength, and functional tasks such as sit-to-stand, turning, and stepping over obstacles. She also asked about prior falls, use of assistive devices, and home and community environments that felt most challenging. This assessment aligned with guideline-supported approaches that emphasize identifying individual fall risk factors and tailoring exercise intensity and progression accordingly.
Together, they set clear goals:
Walk daily around the neighborhood with less fear
Feel more confident on uneven surfaces
Improve strength and balance enough to reduce fall risk
Therapy Plan: Gait, Strength, and Fall-Prevention Strategies
Dr. Reardon designed a progressive program focused on:
Gait training: Practicing different walking speeds, turns, and obstacle negotiation to improve step quality and adaptability.
Strength and balance work: Targeted lower-body strengthening and balance exercises, similar to interventions shown to reduce fall rates and improve gait speed, Timed Up and Go performance, and Short Physical Performance Battery scores in older adults.
Fall-prevention strategies: Education on home safety, appropriate footwear, use (or non-use) of devices, and how to recover safely from a loss of balance. Research indicates that such structured, exercise-based fall-prevention programs can reduce the rate of falls by roughly 20–30% in community-dwelling older adults.
Chiropractic care was added to address spinal mobility and postural mechanics contributing to stiffness and altered gait. While research on chiropractic care and fall risk in older adults is still emerging, observational work suggests that spinal manipulation for spinal pain may be associated with improvements in mobility and potentially lower fall risk, though more rigorous studies are needed.
Outcomes That Mattered to the Patient
Over the course of treatment, the patient reported:
Feeling steadier when walking on grass, gravel, and sloped sidewalks
Improved confidence stepping off curbs and turning quickly
Less stiffness in the spine and trunk, making it easier to look around while walking
These subjective changes are consistent with evidence that balance- and strength-based exercise programs can improve postural control, gait speed, and lower-limb strength, which are all linked to reduced fall risk and better mobility in older adults.
By the end of their program, the patient had resumed regular daily neighborhood walks, including routes with mild hills and uneven ground. They described feeling more secure on their feet and less preoccupied with the fear of falling—an outcome that reflects how targeted gait training, strength and balance exercises, fall-prevention education, and supportive chiropractic care can work together in Living Well’s integrative model.
