Testing balance in community settings – mobile exercise physiologist Jo MacAllan

Mobile Accredited Exercise Physiologist Jo MacAllan – seen here displaying her Balance Mat near the Sea Cliff Bridge on the Illawarra escarpment south of Wollongong – is our newest partner in the Better Balance Initiative.

Jo is gearing up to run our first partnered community balance testing session at the Corrimal Library and Community Centre on Thursday 9 October 2025.

For a fee of $36 for tests in the normal and semi-tandem stances – recommended for falls risk assessment – (or $90 for all five stances), community members will be able to see whether they have low, medium or high postural sway on the Balance Mat.

Jo will then advise each person tested on whether creating a tailored exercise physiology program to address the root cause of any balance instability is going to be beneficial.

The partnership with MacAllan Health has been formed under Part 1 of the Better Balance Initiative.

Recently we opened up the Better Balance Initiative (BBI) to include community, retirement living and homecare clinicians as well as those working in residential aged care. We also split the Initiative into Parts 1 and 2.

The first part is group balance testing and data reporting – necessary because many residential aged care providers already had physiotherapy services in-house and were quite happy with the falls risk mitigation protocols they had in place. The second part of the BBI is group strength and balance courses. Allied health partners like Jo can sign up for one or both parts at the outset.

I love this photo because it fits into the BBI philosophy of combining balance testing with exercise therapy in different parts of Australia. It also reflects how portable and easy the Balance Mat is to use and supports the song I’ve been singing lately:

“We test them here,
We test them there,
Our Balance Mat is everywhere …”

I’d love to see photos of clinicians holding up the Balance Mat in other beautiful locations across Australia. Contact us if you’re interested in joining us. There are only 6 spots left out of a total of 10 allied health clinicians we are planning to include in the BBI.

#BetterBalanceInitiative #balancetest #exerciseprescription