Research

BalanceMaster surmounts the barriers to exercising. Trial findings open up membership opportunities to fitness operators.

Clinical trials conducted on the elderly by a leading exercise physiologist, prove that when used regularly, BalanceMaster significantly improves lower limb strength and power, balance and balance confidence, and reduces asymmetry between the legs which contribute to better stability and mobility.

Dr Dawn Skelton, Reader in Ageing and Health, Glasgow Caledonian University, studied the effects of four weeks training using BalanceMaster on strength, power, balance and functional ability in community dwelling men and women, aged 65 or over.

Dr Skelton's findings present health clubs and leisure centres with a major opportunity to attract a new type of member. By using

BalanceMaster, many of the perceived barriers to exercising are removed, and operators can tap into a potentially huge slice of the population which previously has never set foot in such sites and find the thought of exercise a daunting one.

The newly issued National Service Framework for Older People acknowledges the role of specific exercise in preventing and managing falls and fall-related injures in older people. It identifies the need to find suitable activities for them that have balance improvement at the core of the programme, but also addresses poor power and lower limb asymmetry.

In the trial, 25 men and women aged between 64 and 93, with self-assessed poor balance, were recruited and designated into control, or exercise groups. They had a variety of medical conditions contributing to balance and dizziness problems - 17 had hip or knee replacements.

After the trial, Dr Skelton concluded that 12 sessions over a four-week period on the BalanceMaster significantly improved lower limb strength and power, and balance and ability to perform everyday tasks - all risk factors for falls.

"It has potential to allow safe and effective rehabilitative exercise therapy to frail older people who would find a physiotherapy 'Wobble Board' an impossible task, or at the very least extremely worrying. One of the barriers to participation in exercise is a lack of confidence in the ability to do the exercise, to maintain balance and to get out of breath. The BalanceMaster did not have these perceived barriers."
Dr Dawn Skelton, Reader in Ageing and Health, Glasgow Caledonian University