Efficacy of physical therapy on posture and balance in elderly women with osteoporosis: a randomized clinical trial

Abstract

The falls in the aged population have been considered as a great public health problem, generating governmental costs with specialized attendance and mainly with hospital internments. Amongst some fall risk factors, we distinguish the reduction of the balance, muscular strength and the reduction of flexibility as aspects that are reversible after training. This paper has as objective the study of the effectiveness on posture, balance and mobility in the elderly, of balance training, strength training and muscular stretching based physiotherapy program. Moreover, we will study the relation between postural deviations and balance in this population. For this, there will be evaluated 80 women, with 65 years or more of age, in order to get data of the posture (evaluation by software SAPO and Kyphosis Index), balance (Berg Scale and CTSIB; Balance Master), muscular strength (dynamometer), flexibility (fingertip-to-floor test), range of motion (by goniometry), and 100% limits of stability (by Balance Master). After the evaluations, the individuals will be randomized in one of the three groups of treatment: Group I balance and strength training (n=20), Group II balance and stretching training (n=20) and Group III that will not make activity and will be the control group (n=40). The hypothesis is that the group I will be more efficient than group II in improve balance and postural alignment. We expect to find a direct relation between postural deviations (such as thoracic hiperkyphosis and forward head) and deficit of balance. For statistical analysis the level of significance will be considered as p< 0.05.