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Influence of Regular Proprioceptive and Bioenergetic Physical Activities on Balance Control in Elderly Women

¹ National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM), Faculté de Médecine, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France.
² Equilibration et Performance Motrice, UFR STAPS, Université Henri Poincaré-Nancy 1, Villers-lès-Nancy, France.
³ Centre de Gérontologie, Clinique Antonin-Balmès, Montpellier, France.
⁴ Laboratoire d'Exploration Fonctionnelle, Service ORL, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nancy, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France.

Background. Balance disorders increase considerably with age due to a decrease in posture regulation quality, and are accompanied by a higher risk of falling. Conversely, physical activities have been shown to improve the quality of postural control in elderly individuals and decrease the number of falls. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of two types of exercise on the visual afferent and on the different parameters of static balance regulation.

Methods. Static postural control was evaluated in 44 healthy women aged over 60 years. Among them, 15 regularly practiced proprioceptive physical activities (Group I), 12 regularly practiced bioenergetic physical activities (Group II), and 18 controls walked on a regular basis (Group III).

Results. Group I participants displayed lower sway path and area values, whereas Group III participants displayed the highest, both in eyes-open and eyes-closed conditions. Group II participants displayed intermediate values, close to those of Group I in the eyes-open condition and those of Group III in the eyes-closed condition. Visual afferent contribution was more pronounced for Group II and III participants than for Group I participants.

Conclusions. Proprioceptive exercise appears to have the best impact on balance regulation and precision. Besides, even if bioenergetic activity improves postural control in simple postural tasks, more difficult postural tasks show that this type of activity does not develop a neurosensorial proprioceptive input threshold as well, probably on account of the higher contribution of visual afferent.