Anita Dimovski

Accredited Exercise Physiologist and Project Lead for Steady Steps: Moving Towards Better Balance Program

Sutherland Heart & Lung Team

“My role as an Accredited Exercise Physiologist in the community is to help people independently manage their chronic health conditions through appropriate exercise prescription with the overall aim of improving their quality of life.

I run the Steady Steps dance falls prevention program.  The idea behind it was that falls are a leading cause of hospitalisation and that in the community there is a lack of innovative falls prevention programs. By talking with our clients, we thought we’d try and develop something different and engaging. Many of them danced back in the day and it’s where they met people.  Steady Steps is falls prevention focussed, developing strength, coordination and balance, but it also has a fun element of moving and dancing to the music. We’ve fused different dance styles with balance components.

What distinguishes it from other falls prevention programs is that people are actually moving in time and remembering the steps.  It’s great to see clients improve over the weeks, doing an exercise in the beginning, when they’re so reliant on the bar and then at the end they don’t need it. They’re moving with scarves, clicking and bopping away. It’s great, they’re all smiles.  It’s fun and they’re not thinking that they’re exercising.

Steady Steps won a 2018 SESLHD Improvement and Innovation Award. What matters to me is that we’re given the opportunity to find different ways to improve patient care.”