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

The purpose of the study was to determine the sample size that would allow broad generalizability of the results. To investigate the differences in the responsiveness of fallers and nonfallers to a multicomponent functional balance specific program, 23 participating subjects (70.1 ± 6.6 years) were divided into nonfallers group (13) and fallers group (10). The components of the balance specific program were (1) changing of the center of gravity (CoG) in the vertical direction, (2) shifting of the CoG to the border of stability, (3) rotation of the head and body about the vertical axis, (4) standing and walking on soft surface, and (5) walking over obstacles or on a narrow path. At the end of eight months of the training program, there was no significant difference between the two groups regarding postural sway. The total center of pressure path length was used as the principal outcome measure for the sample size calculation. Based on these results the a priori sample size calculation yielded the estimate of 110 subjects required to be enrolled in order to get 20 subjects in fallers and 30 subjects in nonfallers group for the 80% power to detect the results as significant.