The section on falls could be expanded. Falls are much more likely to occur and much more likely to be fatal or severely debilitating in the elderly (See here for data and references).
Even if one is not elderly there are basic steps one can take to prevent falls. Make sure that staircases have functioning, easy to reach banisters.
Make sure in bathrooms that one has a decent mat to provide traction in the bath tub or shower, or have a shower tile surface that is rough enough to increase friction. If one is changing or modifying a bathroom make sure that the shower is curbless since one common problem is tripping on the shower curb.
Falling or tripping at night is also an issue: if one is at risk (such as being elderly) one should put objects away and not leave them out, and make sure that all areas of the house have easy to reach light switchs.
If one has any medication that causes dizziness as a side effect, talk to your doctor about it. They may be able to switch you to another similar one without the side effect, or adjust the dose.
Get your eyes checked. Aside from the many other issues that can happen related to eyesight (blindess is no fun and eye cancer is often fatal), eye problems can also contribute to falls both at work and at home.
More fall related advice can be found in the link I gave above.
Compared to other health interventions, taking precautions to avoid falling might be relatively more important to cryonicists than to the general population, given that reducing the risk of head trauma due to falling is one of the easiest things one can do to reduce one’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s.
That’s a good point. It is also worth noting that fatal falls in homes are one of the situations where cryonics is less likely to get a chance (in general, accidents that do brain damage or accidents that lead to a long delay between clocking out and preservation are more likely to result in a functionally irreversible loss of information).
Though the elderly are at risk of dying from falls and your recommendations seem valid, according the the Less Wrong survey results, virtually no LWers (who took the survey) are elderly, so the advice seems to insignificant to most LWers to be worth adding.
It may be more common than many expect, but that still doesn’t make it common. Looking at the pie chart in the article, rather few external causes of death are from falls.
The section on falls could be expanded. Falls are much more likely to occur and much more likely to be fatal or severely debilitating in the elderly (See here for data and references).
Even if one is not elderly there are basic steps one can take to prevent falls. Make sure that staircases have functioning, easy to reach banisters.
Make sure in bathrooms that one has a decent mat to provide traction in the bath tub or shower, or have a shower tile surface that is rough enough to increase friction. If one is changing or modifying a bathroom make sure that the shower is curbless since one common problem is tripping on the shower curb.
Falling or tripping at night is also an issue: if one is at risk (such as being elderly) one should put objects away and not leave them out, and make sure that all areas of the house have easy to reach light switchs.
If one has any medication that causes dizziness as a side effect, talk to your doctor about it. They may be able to switch you to another similar one without the side effect, or adjust the dose.
Get your eyes checked. Aside from the many other issues that can happen related to eyesight (blindess is no fun and eye cancer is often fatal), eye problems can also contribute to falls both at work and at home.
More fall related advice can be found in the link I gave above.
Compared to other health interventions, taking precautions to avoid falling might be relatively more important to cryonicists than to the general population, given that reducing the risk of head trauma due to falling is one of the easiest things one can do to reduce one’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s.
That’s a good point. It is also worth noting that fatal falls in homes are one of the situations where cryonics is less likely to get a chance (in general, accidents that do brain damage or accidents that lead to a long delay between clocking out and preservation are more likely to result in a functionally irreversible loss of information).
Though the elderly are at risk of dying from falls and your recommendations seem valid, according the the Less Wrong survey results, virtually no LWers (who took the survey) are elderly, so the advice seems to insignificant to most LWers to be worth adding.
I’ve heard that falling in the shower is a surprisingly common cause of death for young people.
It may be more common than many expect, but that still doesn’t make it common. Looking at the pie chart in the article, rather few external causes of death are from falls.