Effectiveness of a Physiotherapeutic Program for Balance Training in the Elderly

Abstract

Balance (Equilibrium) is a basic automatic reaction that depends of the integrity of the visual, vestibular, proprioceptive and muscular systems so that the body can respond with compensatories and/or anticipatories strategies to the center of gravity and base of support alterations. The normal aging process brings significant alterations on the four systems, leading to progressives alterations on the balance reaction on the elderly. This alterations are strongly related to falls in this population, being this responsible to the high incidence of mortality and morbidity, directly proportional to age, creating high costs, so called “post-fall” costs, to the patient and the government. A preventive programs of balance training in elderly would be capable to reduce the levels of falls in this population, improving the quality of life e reducing costs on health services. On this study a population of ten elderly, with mean age of 66 years old was submitted to a physical therapy program for balance training, made of two therapies per week, for a total of six weeks. The patients were evaluated by specific balance tests (Berg Balance Scale, Tinetti and Timed Up and Go test) on the beginning and the end of the intervention period, showing significant improvement (p<0,05) on balance reaction.