Do Fallers and Nonfallers Equally Benefit from Balance Specific Exercise Program? A Pilot Study

Table 1

Descriptive statistics for the two groups and their initial functional measurements for strength, balance, and gait speed tests.

	Nonfallers group ± SD	Fallers group	Difference between groups (P)
Age (years)	69.5±6.5	71.7±6.7	0.44
Height (cm)	161.1±5.9	158.9±7.9	0.458
Weight (kg)	69±9.9	67.6±14.8	0.783
Berg balance scale (pts.)	54.5±2	54.7±1.6	0.776
Standing on the toes (s)	57.6±8.3	48.9±15.2	0.108
Hand grip strength: female			0.284
Left hand (kg)	26.2±5.9	23±6.6
Right hand (kg)	28.2±7.9	26.8±7.9	0.654
Hand grip strength: male (two subjects, 1 and 2)		—
Left hand (kg)	39 and 42
Right hand (kg)	40 and 45	—
Four-square step test (s)	9.24±2.1	9.5±1.4	0.794
10 m walk test (s)	6.7±1.6	8.1±0.9	0.028
Sharpened Romberg test: eyes open (seconds)	54.2±15.7	50.8±19.2	0.656
Sharpened Romberg test: eyes closed (seconds)	20.7±22	21±19.4	0.973
Adherence to training (times)	39.1±6.5	39±6.8	0.978

Significant differences between the two groups are indicated in bold.