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Strength and Balance Classes

Our strength and balance classes offer a safe and enjoyable form of exercise specifically designed to prevent falls.

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All Strength and Balance Classes are held at our Burleigh Heads Physio Clinic

Our strength and balance classes offer a safe and enjoyable form of exercise specifically designed to prevent falls. They involve small group classes of 5 people and are run by an accredited exercise physiologist. The small class format allows us to design programs tailored to the individual with close supervision for effectiveness.

The class duration is 50 minutes and is run in a circuit style. The components include body weight, resistance and balance specific exercises; all of which can be modified to your individualised requirements.

Benefits of our Strength and Balance Classes Include:

  • Building strength in the legs and hips to prevent falling
  • Building strength and to get up and down off the floor
  • Improving your walking pattern to prevent tripping
  • Increasing strength in the trunk and arms to help with moving around and doing task at home and outside.

In addition to the benefits of exercise, our exercise physiologist can assist in identifying other factors that may impact your balance and falls risk. These include vision such as cataracts and multifocal glasses, pain, some heart problems, hazards around the home and certain medications that may cause drowsiness, dizziness and lack of awareness.

Research has shown the exercise program needs to be:

  • Regular 1-2hrs per week
  • The balance challenges must be sufficiently difficult and gradually increasing in difficulty to maintain improvement.

The Process for Joining Strength and Balance Classes

  • Book to attend a 1 on 1 session with our exercise physiologist for an initial assessment. This will provide a baseline measure to monitor your improvement. We will inform you if you need to see your GP before joining the class.
  • You may also be covered for all or part of your assessment cost by DVA or under Medicare through an Enhanced primary Care plan (EPC). You would need to see your GP for these referrals prior to your assessment. (When you come to the assessment, bring your medications list and your EPC or DVA referral if you have one.)
  • After successfully completing the above steps you are ready to join our class.

Class Times

Please contact us for further information (also below) or to book.

Are you losing confidence walking on uneven surfaces, or feeling unsteady in the shower? Did you know one of more older Australians living in the community aged 65 and up fall one or more times every year? There is an increased tendency to fall with advancing age as strength is lost, normal walking gait is changed, and the body’s balance system becomes dulled and slower to respond to sudden movements.Minor injuries are most common but unfortunately there is risk of serious consequences such as hip fracture that can result in disability, loss of mobility, reduced quality of life, and fear of falling again.  Loss of confidence can further reduce physical activity, community participation and the ability to live independently.The good news is our specially designed Strength and Balance exercise classes can help prevent falls by:

  • Building strength in the legs and hips to prevent falling and help with getting up and down.
  • Improving your walking pattern that keeps you upright and prevents tripping.
  • Provides increasing challenges your natural balance system to keep it fine tuned
  • Increasing strength in the trunk and arms to help with moving around and doing tasks at home and outside.

Importantly, research has shown the exercise program needs to be:

  • Regular – one to two hours a week.
  • The balance challenges must be sufficiently difficult and gradually increasing in difficulty to maintain improvement.

With our small group class format, we can design programs within safe limits tailored to the individual, plus you receive close supervision for safety and effectiveness.

Although active people have fewer falls, simple advice to be more active or simply walking more is not shown to be an effective strategy to reduce falls.  However, we do recommend walking if it is safe for you, plus Tai Chi classes can help, if these are done in addition to specially designed strength and balance classes.

In addition to the benefits of exercise, our tip for you is that other factors that impact balance and falls may need to be addressed. These include vision such as cataracts and multifocal glasses, pain, some heart problems, hazards around the home, and certain medications that may cause drowsiness, dizziness and lack of awareness.

Who can benefit from Strength & balance classes?

All older adults can benefit from this specific exercise, especially those with balance problems, loss of confidence, slower or unsteady walking, and reduced strength and mobility in the hips and legs. Join our Strength and Balance class to improve your balance and confidence and have some fun at the same time.

You will receive some tips on exercise to do in addition to the class, and more information to reduce trip hazards around the home.

Conditions Strength and Balance Classes can help with

  • Back pain
  • Lack of confidence with walking outside
  • Poor balance
  • Gait problems
  • Poor strength in upper and lower limbs

What to Expect

  • 50 minute classes run like a circuit class with 5-7 participants

What to Bring

H2O, comfortable clothing and enclosed shoes. If you are diabetic, we ask that you know your blood sugar level before coming to class and bring your monitor.
you have private health insurance or a DVA gold card you may be able to claim a rebate from your health care provider for Group Exercise Physiology. Please check with your insurer.
have HICAPS onsite for immediate claiming.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a referral to see a physiotherapist?

No. You can book directly with a Physiotherapist, Exercise Physiologist, Massage Therapist or Podiatrist without a referral.

But, if your treatment payment is part of a specific insurance, Dept of Veteran's Affairs, workers' compensation or Medicare program, a referral IS required.

Do we accept Medicare Care Plans (CDM/EPC)?

Yes.

Please send it to us, ideally, before your first appointment. Your physio will write to your GP after the first visit to detail how we will work together with you to address your issue. At the end of treatment program, your physio will write again to the GP with a discharge summary.

Chronic Disease Management plans allow you a Medicare rebate for up to 5 visits over a 12 month period. You can choose which health professional you use those visits at. The 5 visit total is across all allied health disciplines though, unfortunately. So if, for example, you need to see a dietician and a physio for your condition, those 5 visits will be shared between the 2 practitioners.

If you use a care plan to subsidise your physio treatment, you cannot also use your private health fund for the same visit. Rehabilitation for complex conditions usually take greater than 5 visits to manage, and so if you have private health cover, you can use this to subsidise the treatments once you have used up your care plan.

Do we bulk bill Care Plans (EPC/CDM)?

No.

We provide at least a 30 minute appointment and up to 60 minutes for pelvic floor condition assessments. There is also associated paperwork which is a compulsory government requirement.

Medicare rebates do not adequately recompense for this time spent.

How do I know if I have osteoporosis?

The gold standard measurement to diagnose osteoporosis is a DXA scan. The diagnosis of your bone health will be based upon a T-score. This score is essentially how many standard deviations your bone density is away from healthy young adult population average.

Normal = T-score of greater than -1
Osteopenic = T-score between -1 and -2.5
Osteoporosis = T-score below -2.5

The most common diagnostic scans are typically done at the hip and spine but sometimes the forearm as well if either of other regions has osteoarthritis or other joint conditions.

How prevalent is Osteoporosis?

In Australia, 1 in 4 women over the age of 50 are osteoporotic and this grows to 1 in 2 women over the age of 80. In fact, 66% of Queenslanders over the age of 50 have low bone mass.

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare website (last update 17th June 2024), around 853,600 (3.4%) people in Australia were estimated to be living with osteoporosis or osteopenia, according to self-reported data in the 2022 Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) National Health Survey (NHS) (ABS 2023).

In 2022, the prevalence of osteoporosis and osteopenia collectively:

  • increased substantially with increasing age, from 0.7% of people aged 35–44, to 17% of people aged 75 and over
  • was higher among women compared with men (5.5% and 1.1%, respectively)
  • was highest for women aged 75 and over (26%)
  • changed little by remoteness or level of disadvantage (also known as socioeconomic area) (ABS 2023).

After adjusting for different population age structures over time, the prevalence of osteoporosis increased from 1.6% in 2001 to 2.7% in 2022 (ABS 2023)

Is there parking?

Yes, there is ample street parking right in front of the practice on West St, Burleigh Heads. It is 3P metered, so you can either use the "Easypark" app or pay at the machines. If you have a disabled sticker, displayed clearly, Gold Coast City Council don't expect you to pay for metered parking.

Other than medication what can I do for my bone health?

Exercise is the only form of treatment that will help with maintaining or improving bone mass whilst also helping to improve balance and spatial awareness to reduce the likelihood of falls.

What are the risk factors for low bone mass?

Genetic predisposition is the most influential factor when it comes to bone health. However, there are modifiable risk factors including physical activity and diet.

Osteoporosis is largely a preventable disease. Risk factors associated with the development of osteoporosis include increasing age, being female, family history of the condition, low vitamin D levels, low intake of calcium, low body weight, smoking, excess alcohol consumption, physical inactivity, long-term corticosteroid use and reduced oestrogen level (Ebeling et al. 2013).

Primary prevention of osteoporosis involves taking calcium and vitamin D supplements, behaviour modification such as regular weight-bearing and resistance exercise, keeping alcohol intake low and not smoking, and fall reduction strategies, such as addressing vision impairment or making home modifications (RACGP 2018).

The goal of the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis is to maintain bone density and reduce a person’s overall fracture risk (RACGP 2018).

The earlier you get onto improving your bone health the better.

What happens to bone health over your life span?

Your bones rapidly grow during childhood and adolescents, so this is the most important time to build your ‘bone bank’, your bone mass continues to increase and consolidate until you hit peak bone mass which typically occurs by the time you hit 30 years of age.  There is then a steady age-related loss of bone; this is greater in women than in men due to menopause.  For women, around 40% of your peak bone mass is lost by the age of 80. Whereas, the lifetime loss in men is around 25% of your peak bone mass, the bone loss in men is a relatively steady process but it accelerates after 70 years of age.

What is Osteopenia?

Osteopenia is also known as low bone mass, this is the range between normal bone mass and osteoporosis. This is considered a warning zone for action to maintain and if possible build your bone mass.

What is Osteoporosis?

Osteoporosis is defined by the world health organisation as a disease characterised by low bone mass and microarchitectural deterioration of bone tissue, leading to enhanced bone fragility and a consequent increase in fracture risk. It is typically known as a silent disease, as it is often not picked up until it is too late and a fracture occurs.

Where are the common fracture sites of osteoporosis and how do they occur?

The most common fracture sites are the hip (which typically occur after a fall), spine (this type of fracture is normally an insufficiency fracture) and the wrist (these tend to occur earlier in life and can be the first sign of low bone mass).

This service is available at the following locations

Broadbeach Physiotherapy Centre

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