I suggest tai chi more often than almost anything else, and nearly always for one reason: balance.
The people I send are mostly over sixty, and the conversation usually starts because they have mentioned feeling less steady, or have had a near-miss on stairs, or have stopped walking on uneven ground without quite deciding to. Tai chi has reasonable evidence for reducing falls in older adults, and a fall with a hip fracture is one of the few events that permanently changes someone\u{2019}s independence. Weighed against that, twenty minutes of slow movement is a very good trade.
I also suggest it for knee osteoarthritis, where the evidence is moderate and the practical advantage is that it loads the leg without the impact that puts people off, and for anyone who has told me they will not stretch and will not go to a gym, because it is the intervention they might actually do.
What I check first. Any history of falls, and whether that has been assessed — recurrent falls need a proper medical review, not a class. Dizziness or vertigo, which needs its own diagnosis. Recent fracture or joint replacement, where supervised rehabilitation comes first. Unstable heart disease. Vision, which is a bigger contributor to falls than most people think, and blood pressure medication that can cause standing dizziness.
Where supervised physiotherapy is the right answer I refer there instead. The clinic is in Lane Cove, opposite the library.
