Effect of Pebble Mat Walking on Balance in Young Old Population

Introduction: Balance is a biological system that enables us to know where our body is in environment and to maintain a desired position. Fall is an unintentional loss of balance that leads to failure of postural Control. Falls represent the most common mechanism of injury and leading cause of death from injury in people older than 65 years, this study has been undertaken to investigate how a portable device “PEBBLE MAT” can help improve balance. For the very purpose this study has been done from Jan 2020 to March 2020.

Method: Experimental study done using RCT on 50 elderlies with 25 participants in control group and 25 participants in the experimental group with age 69±4 and 70±3 respectively. The above study shows that both the control and experimental group show improvement in balance in post assessment on BERG balance scale. post readings of both the control and experimental groups show improvement than the pre readings assessed by BBS with P value of <0.0001, the inter group comparison shows no statistical significance with P value of 0.12, Further the components individual assessed show variations.

Conclusion: The above study concluded that there is effect of conventional balance training and pebble mat walking on balance in young old population. There is effect of conventional balance training exercise on balance in young old population. The effect of pebble mat walking on young old population is not statistically significant but clinically significant.