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Balance Problems Found Treatable by Training
From Tribune News Service (USA), Reprinted in China Post (Taiwan), December 1992
So many people who slowly lose the ability to
maintain their balance can reverse much of
that decline through a program of exercise and
balance training, a study has found.
In generally healthy people as old as 90, exercise
and balance training can reduce the tendency to
fall by 50 percent, according to the study.
Approximately one-third of older people
experience a fall each year, with one in 20 falls
resulting in serious injury. Each year, about
250,000 Americans fracture their hip, resulting
in long-term disability, pain, and in 10 percent
of hip fractures, death.
“Falls and impaired mobility are critical problems
for older people,” said Dr. Leslie Wolfson, Chairman
of the Department of Neurology at the University of
Connecticut Health Center in Farmington.
Wolfson’s study, supported by the National
Institute on Aging in Bethesda, MD., is one of
eight around the country aimed at improving gait
and balance in the elderly, said Dr. Evan Hadley,
Associate Director for Geriatrics at the Institute.
“We think it’s a very promising line of research,
and could point the way to techniques to keep
people independent and avoid the need for
nursing homes,” Hadley said. Wolfson’s three-
year study on reducing the risk of falling, only
recently completed and not yet published, grew
out of an earlier study published in the November
issue of the journal Neurology.
The Neurology study compared 34 people
whose average age was 34 and with 234 people
whose average age was 76. Using a special
electronic device called a computerized dynamic
posturography platform, Wolfson placed people
in a closed space where the floor they stood on
would move and rotate up, down, forward and
back. Sometimes the walls would move in sync
with them, and other times the walls would remain
motionless ticking their eyes and making it more
difficult to stay upright.
“It would be like getting on a bus and having it
stop suddenly,” Wolfson said.
The study found that elderly people kept their
balance almost as well as younger people when
the platform remained relatively steady, but were
less steady when the platform began swaying in
various directions.
But people aged 80 and over did only slightly worse
than people aged 70, suggesting that age-related
loss of balance is negligible, Wolfson concluded.
Older people got better at maintaining their
balance the longer they were tested, suggesting
that they could benefit from training, he said.
That insight led Wolfson to conduct his second
study to see how exercise and balance training
would improve elderly people’s balance.
In the second study, 108 people aged 70 and
older, all of them in relatively good health, were
trained for three months with weights and
exercises on padded surfaces. Trained coaches
stood nearby to catch them in case they fell.
Wolfson found that after three months of training,
the people almost lost their balance only half as
often as they did before the study.
The take-home message for seniors: their sense
of balance can be improved.
The first thing you look for is medically treatable
diseases, Wolfson said. For instance, treating
Parkinson’s disease can improve balance. And
many medications can worse a person’s sense
of balance if a doctor doesn’t adjust the dosage,
Wolfson added.
Strengthening exercises
can be done under the
direction of a physical
therapist or in a senior
exercise program,
said Wolfson. He
recommended walking
and stair-climbing for
seniors trying to improve
their sense of balance.