The Relationship of Postural Sway in Standing to the Incidence of Falls in Geriatric Subjects

Abstract

A double-blind study was undertaken to determine the relationship (if one exits) between the extent of postural sway in standing of individual elderly subjects and their frequency of falling. A total of 205 subjects were studied; their average age was 81.8 years. Thirty per cent of the men, and 46% of the women, had one or more falls; the proportion of all subjects with one or more falls was 42%. The average speed of sway was significantly greater (P less than 0.05) for those who fell one or more times in a year than for those who did not fall. In this group of institutionalized elderly, there was no sex-related difference in the mean speed of sway; moreover, no age-related trend was demonstrated by the regression of mean speed upon age for all subjects. The mean speed of sway even for the non-fallers was found to be greater than that measured in a sample of non-institutional elderly subjects studied in the past. Thus, mean speed of postural sway was found to be only of statistical value for determining the risk of falling among these institutionalized elderly. We found postural sway to be an indicator of a tendency to fall, but the difference was less than might have been expected. No trend of increasing postural sway correlating with the increased frequency of falls was found.

Mirror versus stationary cross feedback in controlling the center of foot pressure displacement in quiet standing in elderly subjects

“…In addition to high medical expenses that falls pose to the public health service, the consequences for elderly persons are dramatic because of their association with physical and psychological trauma, reduced activity, loss of independence, decreased quality of life and even injury-related deaths. Although falling is a complex and multifactorial problem (5-7), decreased postural control is usually considered as a major contributing factor (8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14). More precisely, posturographic parameters of mediolateral (ML) postural sway measured in unperturbed stance were shown to be the most strongly associated with a history of falls and to be the best predictors for risk of falling in an elderly population (11,12).…”

Effects of Toe Grasp Training for the Aged on Spontaneous Postural Sway.

“…It is documented that postural imbalance is a major factor for fallers 7,8) . From the results, it can be seen that the values of total track length and the environmental areas have decreased in the training group.…”

A wireless embedded tongue tactile biofeedback system for balance control

“…Although falling represents a complex and multifactorial problem [17,18], the degradation of balance capacities, associated with aging (see [10] for a review), is usually considered as a major contributing factor [3,7,8,27]. Postural control requires the integration of sensory inputs to assess the position and motion of the body in space and the ability to generate forces to control body position [20].…”