Dr. Lisa Granville: Hello! I am Doctor Lisa Granville with the American Geriatrics Society. Today I am at Westminster Oaks an active living continuing care Retirement Community in Tallahassee Florida. And I'm going to talk to you about falls assessment.

In fact more than one third of people over the age of 65 have at least one fall each year. It's important to let your health care provider know if you have had a fall. They can talk with you about ways to help prevent falls and they can determine if you're at increase risk for falling.

One simple way to determine your level of risk for fall is to get up and go test. In the get up and go test start in the seated position then stand up without using your arms or hands for support, walk about 10 feet, then around and walk back to the chair.

Finally, sit down in the chair without using your arms or hands for support. Your health care provider may use a lot just to see how long it takes you to complete this test.

Your ability to perform the test, the time it took you to complete it and other factors such as what medication you're taking will be consider together to determine your risk of falling.

Additional things that your health care provider may ask you to do as part of the falls assessment are to close your eyes for few second while standing on place.

Stand with your eyes closed while your health care provider pushes gently against your breast bone, step over an obstacle. If you use a cane or walker these tests can be conducted with your walking aid. And that's what you can expect from a falls assessment test.