Advice sought on teaching self defence to the elderly

Various random thoughts, and please excuse me if you're way ahead of me on any of these:

- Use of walking sticks as weapons

- Breakfalling or opting to go to the ground. I'm coming from the perspective of high fracture risk from falling / increased chance of cerebral bleeding from head injury

- Consideration of change in vision due to age - peripheral vision may be affected

Home security-wise, consider

- Locks

- Awareness methods of robbery e.g. distraction at one door and entry through another

- Location of telephones

I should add, and bear in mind that I work with elderly people, that there are very "young" ninety year olds and very "old" sixty year olds out there.

some cautionary considerations for you

the incidence of osteoporosis (weak/brittle bones) is quite high in western cultures in this age group so striking, twisting and falling presents it's own problems.

as Tau states, the risk of bleeding in the brain is considerable. brains shrink a little and there tends to be less supporting fluid around the brain. blood vessels become more fragile and many are on blood thinners that pre-dispose them to bleeding (particularly those with irregular heart rhythms and/or cardiac valve surgery. impact therefore is probably best avoided

balance, gait, posture and mobility are often compromised for a host of reasons, so simplicity of movement would seem sensible.

again, I agree with Tau in that prevention and awareness are probably the keys for this age group with more rigorous methods suited only to a select bunch within this group I would think.

a finger in the eye works pretty well though whatever age you are...in my humble opinion.

dfallen wrote:

a finger in the eye works pretty well though whatever age you are...in my humble opinion.

I agree with everything you said (especially about posture and movement, which I hadn't considered) apart from this. Corneal abrasions aren't all that serious and in my experience aren't as debilitating as you would expect. The eye is also pretty well protected.

I think there is one more problem. The elder you are, the less is your  mistrustfulness and your "sixth sense". Thats the main reason, why tricksters try to find older people for their frouds.

Fair enough Tau, although I was talking about a finger IN the eye...with commitment and vigour...only when required and justified of course!  

and yes Sebastian B, i think wariness is a vulnerable person's friend. the trick is to not let it control your life, even for the elderly.

I saw a TV ad a while ago selling home security systems. clearly they were targeting the elderly, and if you believed the hype, EVERY person knocking on their front door was going to try to harm them or take advantage of them...sad and dissapointing to be sure but clearly trying to capitalise on their sense of vulnerability...

Just to make sure, with mistrustfulness or "sixth sense" I don´t mean, that you shouldn´t trust anybody. But it´s scientific proved, that you lose a sense for the intentions or purposes of another person. Scientists made a simple test to check this. They let a person lie to older persons and to younger persons. Then they asked the subjects, if they felt comfortable during the conversation. Over the half of the younger persons said, that they had a bad feeling, but only a quarter of the elder.

Sebastian B. wrote:

Just to make sure, with mistrustfulness or "sixth sense" I don´t mean, that you shouldn´t trust anybody. But it´s scientific proved, that you lose a sense for the intentions or purposes of another person. Scientists made a simple test to check this. They let a person lie to older persons and to younger persons. Then they asked the subjects, if they felt comfortable during the conversation. Over the half of the younger persons said, that they had a bad feeling, but only a quarter of the elder.

Any link for that study Sebastian. Great ideas. Thanks guys.

I´ve read about this in a newspaper, so sorry, no link. But if I´ll find something in the internet, I´ll post it.