Martial arts – key to safer falls for osteoporosis patients

Martial arts could be the key to safer falls for osteoporosis sufferers, a new study says.

Brenda Groen, of the Institute for Fundamental and Clinical Human Movement Sciences at Vrije University in the Netherlands, worked with a team of researchers from Sint Maartenskliniek, Nijmegen, to study the effects of fall training in healthy people.

“For obvious safety reasons, this could not be directly assessed using people with osteoporosis. Therefore, we measured the hip impact forces during the martial arts fall exercises in a group of young adults,” Groen said.

“Based on our results, however, we believe that fall training would be safe for people with osteoporosis if they wear hip protectors during the training, perform fall exercises on a thick mattress, and avoid forward fall exercises from a standing position,” she added.

Using a force platform, the researchers were able to measure the force of each fall and compare this to known information about the amount of impact a patient with osteoporosis can withstand.

The falls involved turning a fall into a rolling movement by bending and twisting the trunk and neck, and it is possible for older people to learn these impact-reducing techniques, a BioMed Central (BMC) release said.

“Since martial arts techniques reduce hip impact forces and can be learned by older persons, martial arts fall training may prevent hip fractures among people with osteoporosis,” Groen concludes.

The findings were published in BMC Research Notes.