At what age does 'Fell Over' become 'Having a Fall'?

I’m not sure what the difference is.

Young people fall over. Older people have falls!

There isn’t, it’s just that having a fall is reserved for “old people”….

However, this week whilst out on her morning run she became a victim of a pavement pothole and hubbie insisted he took her to the local A&E to get an x-ray of the very swollen ankle. It has turned out no break just a nasty sprain.
The thing that most disturbed her was the Doctors saying she 'had a fall' now down in her medical notes. Not, as would have been said previously that she fell over
MyD (48) took a similar tumble shortly before Christmas, also a pothole, disguised by a pile of leaves, while out on a run after dropping her 9 year old at school. She was less lucky, ignoring it at the time, and struggling through Christmas and a post-Christmas holiday but eventually had it x-hated only to find it was actually broken.
She would never describe that as having a fall - that’s what I do. .

I quite like ‘I tripped and fell’ as it sort of puts the blame on an inanimate object!

Didn’t we have a thread on this subject a while back?

I wouldn’t read anything into the wording used by the A&E doctor. ‘Had a fall whilst out running’ or similar terminology would be used for an adult of any age.

I was teased by friends a few months ago when I tripped and hit the deck on a loose paving stone. I say I tripped and fell and they delighted in telling me I’d had a fall! We are all 65 😂😂

Years ago I was admitted overnight with concussion and a broken wrist after falling off a horse.

According to my notes written up by the A&E doctor, I’d fallen off a house!

My daughter 38 tripped over recently & was recorded as "having a fall" , she was at pains to stress that she'd "fallen over" 🤣

I too don’t have falls. If I trip I say I have fallen over!

It's at approximately the same age as that when the feebleness of old age becomes clinically significant.

Grey is not my colour, Medics like to medicalise their language. Goodness knows why!

I joke about this at work, my colleagues are lovely and protective of me. I’m not to carry heavy boxes and they are wary of me getting on my knees ( in case I can’t get up).
They don’t want me to “fall”. Specially not “have a fall” that would be different and they say they will let me know when it changes.

If you suddenly find yourself on the floor then you’ve ‘had a fall’ if you trip then you’ve fallen over, but as many have said, ‘I’ve tripped over’ is the way to tell it, not ‘I’ve fallen over’.

Had a fall is like 'had covid' , 'had measles', or 'had a stroke'.

Medicalising life events is part of how medics work. It's necessary to view the event (such as a fall ) as a thing that happened to the patient so that cause and prognosis can be done.

Juliet27

Didn’t we have a thread on this subject a while back?

To me it’ll always be a few years older than my age! Though luckily at 74 I haven’t ‘fallen over’ for at least 12 years - last time was in The Dales, when I caught my foot in a loop of thin rope that had somehow been largely buried in the grass.

Oops, replied to wrong post.

But to ‘Juliet27* I’d just reply that even if there was such a thread, I dare say plenty of GNers won’t necessarily have seen it.

It really depends on the mechanism of the fall. If you know that you caught your foot on something (as I did the other day and fell up the stairs - lovely bruises!) or turned your ankle over on the edge of the pavement, then that can happen to anyone and isn't age-related. I've been doing things like that since I was at school.

"Having a fall" is perhaps more to do with unsteadiness and lack of balance which might be worse as we get older...

I agree Septimia,
I fell asleep on the settee last year woke up and stood up with a start my hip gave way and I fell over the coffee table breaking a bone in my foot.
The triage nurse asked me if I had had a "Fall', I replied no I fell over a coffee table when my hip gave way not something I do regularly. Maybe I sounded cross because we had a 7 and a bit sit overnight to see a Dr. there is a difference.

My son corrected me when I told him I'd had a fall. No, mum, you fell over. It did sound better.

I agree with Septimia. A fall relating to loss of balance in the elderly is indicative of frailty and it is not wrong to call that "having a fall".
Otherwise, a person falls over, for instance on an uneven pavement.

It's not the words, 'had a fall,' it's the way it is used to describe anybody who has fallen over that the speaker perceives as 'old'.

Very annoying for older people who are normally fit, active and healthy but happened to have fallen over something. It implies they are decrepit just because of their age!

I think there was a thread on this very recently.

I don't care how they describe it as long as they document my injuries properly and the treatment I need.