The relationship between back extensor muscle strength with dynamic balance and fear of falling in elderly people

Falling is a major health problem among elderly that has significant affect their health and life quality, but it can be possibly prevented by development of muscle strength. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between strength of spine extensor muscles with dynamic balance and fear of falling in elderly people.
68 elderly men and woman with mean age of 70±5.43 years, height of 157.29±8.59 cm and weight of 70.64±9.63 kg were randomly recruited among volunteers. Dynamometer, biodex stability system and modified MFES questionnaire were used to assess strength of spine extensor muscles, dynamic balance and fear of falling respectively. This research was an empirical and causal relationship study, and to elicit the results, Pearson correlation coefficient was used and significance level was considered if p The results indicated a significant negative correlation between strength of spine extensor muscles and dynamic balance in anterior posterior direction (p=0.0001), while no significant correlation was shown between strength of spine extensor muscles and dynamic balance in media-lateral direction (p=0.29). In addition, there was a significant positive correlation between strength of spine extensor muscles and fear of falling (p=0.01).
Strength of spine extensor muscles is an effective factor to maintain balance at anterior-posterior direction and fear of falling.