comparing age-ralated changes of balance performance in youth and older adults

objectives: the purpose of current study was to compare the effect of aging on balance in different sensory conditions. methods & materials: in this cross sectional study we compared 20 healthy youth (with age 22.75±2.29) and 20 healthy older adults (with age 65.1±4.16) in single leg standing in different sensory conditions. sensory conditions were open eye/ hard surface (oehs), closed eye/ hard surface (cehs), closed eye/ foam surface (cefs) as balance tasks. one-way anova, paired t-test and independent sample t- test were used. results: findings showed significant difference between youth and older adults in all three sensory conditions. in addition, in each group, there was significant difference between oehs and cehs/ cefs. hence, significant difference was seen between cehs and cefs in each group. conclusion: based of our findings sensory information is more critical for balance in elderly than youth. in addition, standing on one-leg can be used as a proper test for evaluation of older adults.