Ask A Genius 1256: “Greatest Portrait Artist Competition” and Falls
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/02/02
Rick Rosner: Carole and I were watching the “Greatest Portrait Artist Competition” in England. In this show, artists from around the UK compete in portraiture. Tonight’s subject was the performer who portrays Dame Edna Everage—a renowned drag performer. Carol thought he had died because the show is from 2021; apparently, he suffered a fall in which he broke his hip, an injury that can be fatal for older people. There’s even a possibility it contributed to my mom’s death.
When you’re that old—my mom was 88 and two‑thirds—they generally don’t perform an autopsy unless you’re willing to pay four or five grand. We were speculating. She had health issues, but they found her on the floor. We suspect that what killed her was the fall—she was found sitting.
Then, she triggered the fall alarm when she tipped over from that position about two hours after she had already passed away. Older adults are often moved from senior living into a board-and-care facility when they fall. Falls are brutal for older people. Interestingly, falls aren’t nearly as harmful to younger individuals. We average close to six feet tall, and when we tip over, our center of gravity means our body experiences the equivalent energy of falling from about three feet. (Half of our body is closer to the ground, half is further away.)
In contrast, if you drop any object from three feet, it’s likely to be damaged. Remarkably, younger people can take falls without sustaining serious injuries. Of course, people get hurt—basketball players, for instance, get knocked down a few times per game—but overall, our bodies are much more resilient. Enjoy the rest of your evening at the pub.
And those guys—their center of gravity is about three and a half feet off the ground. Then you have football players, of course, flying through the air. They land on grass, and even though they’re all padded, it’s still a tremendous amount of energy your body can absorb when you fall. I already took one a while back. That was last year—I was probably 64 at the time. I took a fall where I messed up my wrist and crushed a bone.
I caught myself, so it wasn’t a terrible fall because my head didn’t take any of the kinetic energy, but my wrist still paid the price. I’ve entered that period in life now, and my wife, too. She hasn’t had any major injuries from falls, though she did crack her ankle—a bone in her foot got injured. It wasn’t that she fell from five feet, but still, her mass plus gravity did its damage. Now that we’re in our sixties, falling has become increasingly dangerous.
I even joke that we should probably start crawling everywhere at some point. In Japan, they’re experimenting with lower-body exoskeletons or frameworks that help move your legs and provide stability. This is especially important when you’re tottering around in your eighties, perhaps even dealing with Alzheimer’s and losing the mental wherewithal to walk steadily.
Japan faces a demographic crisis where there aren’t enough young people to care for all older people. All developed countries (every continent except Antarctica and soon Africa as well) will face a similar demographic decline in the next 30 years. If everyone had an effective exoskeletal armature, you might boost the average lifespan by a few months—which is huge. One little fix that raises the average lifespan is that falls kill many people.
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