نادر ناصرپور

Abstract

Introduction and goals: Elderly is a period of life that appears in people due to physiological changes, psychological factors, lifestyle, some visible behavioral changes such as increased re action time, decreased balance and posture control, and changes in walking patterns. One of the main problems of the elderly is the loss of balance and frequent falls while standing or walking. Improving functional balance should be the main priority in designing sports exercises for this group of people. Therefore, the comparison of the effectiveness of widely used exercise programs, which are recommended for improving balance, has been taken into consideration. Thus, the general purpose of this study is to investigate and compare the effect of two protocols of aerobic exercise and core stability exercise on the elderly’s static and dynamic balance.

Methods: In this study, ۳۰ healthy elderly people whose ages ranged from ۶۰ to ۷۰ were randomly selected and assigned into three groups: aerobic exercises, core stability exercises, and control group. Subjects were evaluated using ۲ balance tests of Romberg and Sharpened Romberg for static balance and ۲ FRT and TUG balance tests for dynamic balance, before and after ۶ weeks of dedicated training. Descriptive statistics were used for descriptive analysis of the data and Shapiro-Wilk test was used to measure the normality of data distribution according to their number. According to the research hypotheses, in order to compare the results and test the hypotheses, the One-way MANCOVA test and the Bonferroni post hoc test were used at the alpha significance level (p ?.۰۵) using    version ۲۶ software.

Results: Examining and analyzing the research hypotheses using the MANCOVA test showed that performing both aerobic and core stability training protocols has a positive effect on improving the sense of static and dynamic balance of the elderly (p >.۰۵). using, the results of One-way MANCOVA test and Bonferroni post hoc test on the comparison between the effect of these two types of exercises showed no significant difference in the improvement of static balance (p>.۰۵). However, in examining the effect of exercises on dynamic balance, the findings of this study showed a significant difference in favor of aerobic exercises compared to central stability exercises (p <.۰۵).

Conclusion: The results showed that performing both protocols of aerobic and core stability exercises have a positive effect on the static and dynamic balance of the elderly. Hence, it is recommended to trainers and experts in the field of physical education and sports sciences use the aerobic and central stability exercises in order to improve the elderly’s static balance. It is also recommended that in order to improve dynamic balance in the elderly, it is better to use aerobic exercises than central stability exercises.

Key words: Aerobic exercises, Core stability exercises, Static balance, Dynamic balance, Elderly.