Abstract

BackgroundThis systematic review was performed to summarize the current evidence for whole body vibration (WBV) interventions on postural control in elderly.MethodsEnglish and German language papers in Medline, PEDro, Cinahl and the Cochrane databases were searched. Two reviewers extracted data on patients' characteristics, type of WBV intervention and outcomes. Two independent reviewers rated the methodological quality of these studies. Data were pooled using random-effects meta-analysis.ResultsFifteen papers reporting quantitative data were included. Results from 15 papers could be pooled for a meta-analysis. The studies involved 933 participants. In 7 studies the authors investigated the effects of vibration plates generating vertical sinusoidal vibrations (VS-WBV) and 7 papers described the use of side-alternating sinusoidal vibrations (SS-WBV). One study investigated both VS-WBV and SS-WBV.Weak to moderate evidence of an overall effect as a result of VS-WBV and SS-WBV was observed for (a) static balance for post-intervention values with a standardized mean difference (SMD) -0.06, 95% CI -0.31 to 0.18 and for change values SMD -0.26, 95% CI -1.09 to 0.57, and (b) dynamic balance for post-intervention-values SMD -0.34, 95% CI -0.60 to -0.08. For functional balance (c) an overall outcome for post-intervention values with SMD of 0.34, 95% CI -0.19 to 0.87 was found.ConclusionsThe 15 studies reviewed were of moderate methodological quality. In summary, SS-WBV seems to have a beneficial effect on dynamic balance in elderly individuals. However, the current results should be interpreted with caution because of the observed heterogeneity of training parameters and statistical methods. Future studies are warranted to evaluate the effects of WBV on postural control in an elderly population.

Highlights

  • This systematic review was performed to summarize the current evidence for whole body vibration (WBV) interventions on postural control in elderly

  • For patients with Parkinsons disease Haas and Schmidtbleicher postulated [25] that stochastic resonance whole-body vibration (SR-WBV) transiently improves balance

  • The title and abstracts of these 95 papers were studied and after removing duplicates 71 studies remained for further analysis. The majority of these papers had to be excluded (n = 56) because they did not refer to postural control or used electrical vibration stimuli

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Summary

Introduction

This systematic review was performed to summarize the current evidence for whole body vibration (WBV) interventions on postural control in elderly. Several studies have demonstrated that WBV improves postural control in healthy young or elderly individuals as well as in patients with orthopedic (e.g. rupture of the cruciate ligaments) [15] or neurological diseases (e.g. Parkinsons disease, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury) [14,22,23]. Torvinen et al [24] showed beneficial long-term effects of sinusoidal WBV on the strength of young healthy individuals but not immediately on postural control. For patients with Parkinsons disease Haas and Schmidtbleicher postulated [25] that stochastic resonance whole-body vibration (SR-WBV) transiently improves balance

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