Proposal for a body balance training program for children through an integrative literature review

Abstract

Objective: to verify, in the literature, the proposals to rehabilitate the vestibular function, so as to propose a training program for body balance for children. Methods: this article sought studies that proposed to rehabilitate or train body balance in the Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE/PubMed) and Scientific Electronic Library Online (SCIELO) databases, in addition to digital sources from Brazilian public universities. As descriptors, the terms “rehabilitation”, “balance” and “child” were used, combined with the Boolean operator AND. The variables analyzed were: public submitted to the intervention, number of subjects and age group, number and frequency of sessions, number and/or time of execution of the exercise, duration of the session and the program. Results: 17 (60.74%) articles were Brazilian, 14 (50%) used the Cawthorne and Cooksey protocol, 9 (32.14%) studied children, and the majority (67.85%) organized the program in weeks. A body balance training program, stimulating the three body balance systems, consisting of 30-minute sessions twice a week for 7 weeks, totaling 14 sessions, was developed. Conclusion: the analysis of the variable related to the protocol/strategy to rehabilitate the vestibular function indicated that no study proposed the stimulation of the three body balance systems, with no standardization for children, adults and the elderly. A vestibular function rehabilitation program was developed for children, with stimulation of these three systems, expanding the therapeutic possibilities in this area.