Why Improving Your Balance Matters
Balance is critical to your daily life, allowing you to walk, climb up and down stairs, and prevent falls. Good balance allows you to maintain a stable, upright position when standing, walking, and sitting. Improving your balance has many benefits including increased body awareness, joint stability, coordination, posture, and athletic performance as well as reduced risk of injury and falling. Maintaining good balance is particularly important for seniors as aging contributes to visual, vestibular, and muscular weakness issues that negatively impact balance. Physical therapy can help you improve your balance safely and address underlying issues causing your balance problems. Today, Mangiarelli Rehabilitation physical therapist, Jen, demonstrates several exercises you can do at home to improve your balance.
What is Balance?
Balance is defined as the even distribution of weight that enables you to remain upright and steady so that you do not fall. Your balance is dictated by three systems, your vestibular system, your proprioception, and your vision, which work together with your brain to help you maintain balance and stability when stationary and when moving.
The vestibular system is a sensory system in the ears that controls your spatial orientation and provides equilibrium. Proprioception involves sensory nerves that tell the body where it is in space at any point in time; for example, if you close your eyes and lift your arm above your head, your proprioception allows you to know where your arm is spatially without seeing it. Your vision helps the brain organize where the body is in space and assesses surrounding information, which is communicated to the brain and vestibular system to maintain balance. The brain coordinates impulses and information from the eye, inner ear, and body sensations, sending signals to the muscular system to move or make adjustments to maintain balance.
Why Does Improving Balance Matter?
Balance is integral to your daily life, allowing you to walk, climb up and down stairs, and prevent falls. Improved balance results in increased body awareness, joint stability, coordination, and greater ease of movement. Further benefits of improving your balance enhanced athletic performance, better posture, reduced risk of injury, and less joint and back pain. Maintaining and improving your balance as you age is critical to avoid injury and falls; balance issues are one of the leading causes of injury in seniors in the United States.
What are Balance Problems?
Balance problems can occur when there is a problem with your vision, vestibular system, or proprioception, causing these systems to send incorrect signals to the brain or if the muscular system cannot carry out necessary movements to correct and maintain a person’s balance. Balance issues make it challenging to maintain a stable and upright position when standing, walking, or sitting. An individual may have balance issues when static (stationary) or with dynamic balance (movement or multi-tasking when moving). If dynamic balance is abnormal, the individual has a heightened risk of falling.
When an individual experiences a balance problem, he may more easily trip, sway, stumble, and fall as well as experience lightheadedness or dizziness. Seniors are most at risk of having a balance problem with 75% of Americans age 70 and older diagnosed with abnormal balance. Over the age of 80, balance issues increase by 30%.
Multiple factors contribute to balance problems, including:
Poor vision resulting from age, eye tracking problems, or eye diseases
Inner ear (vestibular) problems due to trauma, aging, or disease
Proprioception issue due to trauma or disease, such as diabetes or neuropathy
Decline in muscle strength and flexibility
Joint stiffness and arthritis
Side effects from medications
A sedentary lifestyle and lack of activity which contributes to muscle weakness
Medical conditions like stroke, Parkinson’s disease, Multiple Sclerosis, arthritis, spinal cord injury, or diabetes
Physical Therapy for Balance Problems
Physical therapy can help you improve your balance and address underlying issues that are contributing to your balance issues. Physical therapy reduces your fall risk and fear of falling, increases your activity levels safely, and improves your mobility, balance, strength, movement, flexibility, and posture.
Initially, the physical therapist will perform an evaluation of multiple systems of the body including muscular strength, the inner ear, eye-tracking ability, sensation, proprioception (positional awareness of the body), and current balance. The therapist also completes a visual and vestibular system screen that assesses eye movement control, spinal range of motion, coordination, and posture.
Physical therapy to improve balance issues includes:
Vestibular rehabilitation therapy (VRT) for vestibular issues: an exercise-based program designed to reduce dizziness and address gaze instability, imbalance issues, and fall risk
Postural training
Manual therapy to improve range of motion and mobility in joints to more easily respond to changes and maintain balance
Core strengthening for a strong center of balance in the body
Stretching exercises to improve the flexibility of tight muscles
Strengthening exercises to address muscle weakness and improve overall muscle strength, particularly in the trunk, core, and hips
Balance and gait training including single-leg and multi-directional exercises and static and dynamic balance drills
Patient education on fall hazards such as inappropriate footwear, loose rugs, poor lighting, or furniture obstacles
In the video below, physical therapist Jen Story demonstrates several exercises you can do at home to safely improve your balance:
