Exergaming improves dynamic balance in community dwelling elderly

Objective. Improving and maintaining balance is essential for the elderly population, as impaired balance is a major risk factor for falling. In daily-life settings, balance control is no aim by itself, but postural adjustments of the whole body are continuously required for many goal-directed movements. Exergaming, the notion of exercise combined with video games, is popular in health care practice to improve balance and suggested to help avoid falls in the elderly. When exercising by playing a balance game people do not pay attention to the physical exercise and their own movements but on the outcome of their movements in the projected environment. However scarce, some evidence is available for the direct beneficial effect of playing an active video game with a balance board as a peripheral on postural control. Therefore, the objective of the study was to assess the effect of 6 weeks exergaming based balance training program on balance performance in a group of elderly community dwelling persons. Methods. Nine healthy elderly participated in this study (age >65 years). A balance training device was used which integrates video gaming with balance control on a moveable platform. By subtly shifting weight on the balance board the person virtually tilts a maze to guide a ball to a target. An interrupted A1BA2 time series design was used, with a three weeks baseline period A1 preceding the intervention B and one baseline period A2 was following the 6 weeks intervention. Before, after and during the intervention phase balance was assessed with the figure-of-eight walking test, the Berg Balance Scale, duration of tandem and one leg stance with eyes open and closed. In addition pleasure in and motivation for exergaming was assessed using visual analogue scales (VAS). Intervention effects were examined using multilevel modelling statistics. Results. The dynamic balance performance, measured by the figure-of-eight walking test and the Berg Balance Scale improved significantly after the training (p