Vanshika Sethi and Shivangi Saxena
ABSTRACT Introduction: Aging in its broadest sense is the continuous and irreversible decline in the efficiency of various physiological processes1. A decline in all major systems for e.g. cardiovascular, metabolic, respiratory and neuromuscular contributes to weakness, fatigue and slowing of movement that has been the hallmarks of ageing.3Among older adults impairment in control of balance under dual task conditions is a common occurrence.20 Methodology: A total of 30 elderly subjects including males and females participated in the study. After filling the consent form subjects were divided in to two groups i.e. group A and group B having15 males and 15 females for comparison. Prior assessment before giving the training protocol was done by using BBS and MMSE scales to check balance and cognition impairments. Thereby a dual task training of 4 weeks including 3 days a week with 45 minutes daily were given in groups of 4 (including 2 males and 2 females) to each subject and after successful completion of this post training assessment was done by using BBS and MMSE scales to check improvement in balance and cognition via dual task training. Results: within group analysis shows improvements in BBS and MMSE scores in both the groups after the training protocol with significant difference and reduction in number of missteps. Whereas between groups analysis does not shows any significant difference. Conclusion: As doing concurrent tasks posses great difficulty in elderly people with balance impairments in day today environment therefore a balance training program which focuses on dual task with increasing difficulties between two tasks is efficacious in improving balance and cognition recovery in elderly persons with balance impairments.