EFFECTIVENESS OF MOBILE BASED VIRTUAL REALITY TRAINING ON IMPROVING BALANCE IN ELDERLY POPULATION

Kancherlapalli Ooha Latha*, P. S. R. Thulasi, Patchava Apparao, Pappala Kiran Prakash, Ganapathi Swamy

ABSTRACT

Background: Balance deficits due to physical deconditioning are the leading cause for falls in elderly, a major public health concern. Many evidence based studies proved Virtual Reality as one of the promising intervention to improve balance in elderly population by using costly setups like Nintendo Wii Fit Plus, Microsoft xbox360 sensor kinect video game consoles which were bit expensive to be available at all physiotherapy centers. Hence the need for low budget Smartphone Based Virtual Reality Balance Training is needed. Methods: Quasi Experimental study design. A total of 120 subjects, 103 met the inclusion criteria were randomly allocated into two groups. In Group-A (n=51) Mobile Based Virtual Reality Training and Conventional Balance Exercises were given, Group-B (n=52) Conventional Balance Exercises were given, 3 times a week for 5 weeks. The outcomes of this intervention were measured by BBS and TUG test. Results: Independent ‘t’ test was used to differentiate the mean significance difference between continuous variables. Paired ‘t’ was used to assess the statistical significant difference pre and post test scores. Within group comparison both groups showed significant improvement in all parameters where as in between group comparison Mobile Based Virtual Reality Training group showed better improvement. Conclusion: After 5 weeks of interventions, this study concludes that Mobile Based Virtual Reality Training is a useful adjunct on improving balance in elderly population along with conventional balance exercises.

Keywords: Elderly, Mobile Based Virtual Reality Training, Conventional Balance Exercises, Berg Balance Scale, Timed Up and Go Test.