Where we all fall down

Getting on the escalator going up is ok, but going down is not. Old eyes search for something easily visible that appears to be level and substantial, and disappearing steps don't cut it.
Wide painted lines on pavements and floors can be deceptive.  Do they signal a step, a hollow, a decline, a change of level?  There's always  the fear of a misstep.  It's about failing depth perception, or balance, or both.
The step that wasn't there, the grab for a support that missed, the crunch on the way down, the sudden impact of a hard surface.
The fractured this or that, the ambulance, the hospital, the rehab, the lost confidence.
Falls are the leading cause of injury-related death in the over 65 age group - and the numbers have doubled in the last decade. Well of course, the population is ageing isn't it?
The other fear is losing independence, causing many of the old refusing to wear an alarm pendant. ' They just don't want to accept that they are in mortal danger if they have an injurious fall when they are on their own'
It's denial again. "Of course I'm not going to fall over - you think I'm senile?"

That's until the first fall provides an inconvenient truth.