Moderate sensory balance training leads to improvements in elderly

Lara A Thompson

doi:10.7243/2055-2386-6-12

Abstract

Abstract Background: With increases in average life expectancy (i.e., 43 million Americans over 65 years old in 2012 and 72 million projected in 2030), the importance of investigating and establishing accessible

Highlights

Training to improve balance and reduce falls in mature individuals holds significant societal relevance
Critical to reducing fall-risk in the mature, aging population are user-friendly,low-impact training methodologies for balance maintenance, improvement, and confidence (e.g., [5,6,7,8,9]). It is well-known that the control of one’s posture is maintained by sensorimotor integrationof the visual, vestibular, and somatosensory system inputs [10]
All experiments for this study were conducted within the Center for Biomechanical & Rehabilitation Engineering (CBRE) at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) and the protocol was approved by the UDC Institutional Review Board (979744-1)

Summary

Introduction

Training to improve balance and reduce falls in mature individuals holds significant societal relevance. Critical to reducing fall-risk in the mature, aging population are user-friendly,low-impact training methodologies for balance maintenance, improvement, and confidence (e.g., [5,6,7,8,9]). It is well-known that the control of one’s posture is maintained by sensorimotor integrationof the visual, vestibular, and somatosensory system inputs [10]. With increases in average life expectancy (i.e., 43 million Americans over 65 years old in 2012 and 72 million projected in 2030), the importance of investigating and establishing accessible training methodologies towards good balance and preventing falls has significant societal relevance. It was hypothesized that modest and accessible training exercises targeting sensory inputs and base-of-support (BOS) improves balance and balance confidence in mature participants (60 – 80 years old)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion