A simple exercise prescription in the doctor's office is already preventing falls in older patients

A fall can steal an older person's independence in a second. In a trial across 22 primary-care practices in the USA, with 11,945 patients aged 65 and over, doctors used a tool built into the medical record — called eSTEPS — to prescribe tailored exercise, offer physical-therapy referrals and hand patients simple materials like a handbook and apps. Over the following one to two years, falls were measurably lower in the group whose doctors used the tool than in usual care. The study, published in JAMA Network Open, matters because nothing exotic was required: fall prevention was folded into the ordinary doctor's visit, in a form any large practice could copy.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: institutional program