A South Carolina home health care company is using a new program to teach seniors how to stay safe and prevent falls. Interim HealthCare launched its new Balance and Safety Education (BASE) program to reduce fall incidents among local seniors. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in four older adults report falling each year, and falls are the leading cause of injury-related death among adults ages 65 and older.The BASE program is built around the Otago Exercise Program. " consists of 17 exercises for strengthening and balance and then a walking program,” said Odette Ray, the director of therapy services at Interim HealthCare.Patients are then placed in a specialized program with their own physical therapist who helps them become even stronger while having fun.“We incorporate the use of balls, balloons, foam pads, exercises, obstacle courses," said Ray. "So we take everything that we do and turn it into a fun aspect.” But Ray says the program is not just about the exercises. She says it's also about safety education.“ is an important component of this program because, I feel like as therapists, we can go out, and we can do all this strengthening and balance exercises, but if we do not promote that safety aspect of it, then we’re going to still have patients that experience falls," said Ray. "And our whole ultimate goal is to decrease falls in the home.” She says from what she and her team have observed, most falls happen in the bathroom and the bedroom."So, as therapists, we go in on that initial assessment we look in the bedroom. We make recommendations. Is there any equipment we can recommend? We go into the bathroom. We do the same thing," she said. "And then we kind of like do dry runs. If, in the middle of the night, you had to get up quickly to go to the bathroom, what would you do? So, we would then reenact that whole process so that we can teach them safety issues, so that when they do get up, we can decrease the risk of falls by the education we’ve provided for them.” Chris Garrett is a physical therapist assistant who started working on the BASE program with 91-year-old Harriett Frye after she suffered a hip fracture and underwent surgery. “When I first met Ms. Frye, she needed a lot of dependence with transfer sit to stand, getting from her bed to the front room getting from her chair back to the bed," said Garrett.Frye says Garrett and the program changed her life. “Now I can go fix my food in the kitchen my coffee in the morning," she said. "He also taught me how to go down the stairs, which now that’s why I can go out, which makes me very, very happy.” But she says he has taught her even more than that. “He convinced me to have hope and that I would be able to do this and have self-esteem," said Frye. “Chris has gotten me to where I am today, and I am so thankful. He is a Godsend.” To learn more about the BASE Program, contact Interim Healthcare.