AGE-RELATED DIFFERENCES IN STATIC POSTURAL BALANCE IN KOREAN ELDERLY ADULTS

Abstract

Poor postural balance has been related to falls in older people. Although fall rates increase with age, age-related declines in postural balance of older people are still unclear. The goal of this study was to investigate age-related changes in the static postural balance ability of Korean elderly adults. Three hundred and eighty-nine normal elderly adults with ages ranging from 57 years to 87 years participated in this study. All elderly adults were instructed to stand in their preferred natural stance on a self-developed force platform. As postural sway variables, peak frequency, mean frequency, mean velocity, and mean distance were calculated from the center of pressure (COP) trajectories in both the medio-lateral (ML) and antero-posterior (AP) directions. The mean velocity in the older-elderly was significantly faster compared to those of the other age groups particularly in the AP direction (p <0.05). In both the ML and AP directions, the older-elderly group showed a greater mean distance compared to the other age groups (p < 0.05). Conversely, no significant age group differences were found in mean frequency and peak frequency (p > 0.05). Our results mean that the older-elderly group showed postural balance with faster AP sway speed and overall sway size. The results of our study help in the understanding of age-related declines in postural balance for the prevention of falls and the development of a regression model for normative postural balance ability in Korean elderly adults.