Impact of Combined Sensory and Cognitive Training on Static and Dynamic Balance in Older Adults

Introduction and Investigating effect of various exercises as the main influencing factor on elderly balance became more popular in the recent years. This research aimed to investigate effect of combined sensory and cognitive training on elderly women health static and dynamic balance.
36 healthy elderly women voluntarily participated in this study and their physical and cognitive health status was measured by medical history questionnaire and MMSE, respectively. Subjects were randomly assigned into three different training groups including sensory (N=14), cognitive (N=10) and combination (N=12). Baseline static and dynamic balances were measured using Flamingo and TUG tests respectively in the three groups. The second measurement was obtained after 5 practice sessions and each session composed of 20 efforts in 10 days. Data were analyzed using descriptive (mean and standard deviation) as well as referential methods (one-way covarianceand paired t test) with significance value set at pFindings: Although our findings showed no significance difference among groups but, improvement of static and dynamic balance after trainings was considerable. In other words, there was improving performance not only in static balance but, also in dynamic balance among participants taking cognitive, sensory, and combination training.
This study showed that sensory, cognitive and combined trainings improved static and dynamic balance of elderly. Therefore, taking exercise is one of the best approaches to influence elderly motor performance which eventually improves lifestyle balance and prevent falls.