Are elderly people at risk of falling taught how to get up again?

It is recommended that patients at risk of falling should be taught how to get up from the floor. Clinical experience suggests, however, that this is rarely done. A stratified random sample of members of the special interest group of physiotherapists working with elderly people in England and Wales (PT: n = 50) and all members of the corresponding occupational therapy group (OT: n = 41) were surveyed to ascertain whether or not this impression was justified. The response rate was 80% with 67 usable replies (74%, PT: n = 38, OT: n = 29). Replying to an open-ended question about their usual management of instability and tendency to fall, only four physiotherapists (11%) and six occupational therapists (21%) indicated that would they teach such elderly people how to get up from the floor.