Effect of Gaze Stability Exercises on Balance Confidence and Mobility in Elderly Population

Background: To determine whether gaze stability exercises are effective in improving the balance confidence and mobility in elderly population. Design: Randomized controlled. Study Setting: Physiotherapy Out Patient Department, SRM Medical College Hospital and Research Center. Participants: 40 subjects both male and female without any definite balance disorder but with history of subjective apprehension to do activities, who attend the outpatient physiotherapy department of SRM Medical College Hospital and Research Center, were selected for the study.

Intervention: Subjects are divided into 2 groups, the experimental group (n=20) performed gaze stability exercises and conventional exercises for balance, and the control group (n=20) performed conventional physiotherapy exercises for balance. Weekly progression of exercise was done as per the designed exercise protocol. The participants of both the groups performed the exercises 3 times daily over a 2-week period.

Outcome Measures: Berg Balance Scale (BBS), The Activities-specific Balance Confidence scale (ABC) was take before and after 2-weeks of intervention. Result: There were no baseline differences (P d” .05) between the Experimental and Control groups in any outcome measures. Experimental group improved significantly in both the outcome measures compared with the control group.

Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that gaze stability exercises leads to improvement of balance and subjective confidence to carry out the activities of daily life due to adaptation of age related degeneration found in elderly population.