بررسي تاثير تمرين ذهني بر تعادل سالمندان

The effects of mental practice on balance in the elderly

Introduction: Mental practice refers to "The symbolic rehearsal ofa physical activity in the absence of any gross muscular movements". It has been shown in a remarkable number of studies that the use of mental practice like physical practice can produces significant improvements in motorsk ills. Thusthistherapeutic technique can be used in elderly rehabilitation. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of mental practice on balance in the elderly. Materials & Methods: Thirty healthy old subject over the age of 60 years took part in this study. Subjects solicited from two senior-citizen centers in Tehran and randomly as-signed to experimental and control groups. Balance ofsubj ec:ts was assessed in four stage include baseline, pre- treatment,post-treatment and follow-up. Subjects in experimental group performed mental practice ofa motor and balance skill for 3 weeks and control group did not perform any practice in that period. Findings: The Results of this study indicate that mental practice resulted inasignificant increase of clinical Balance tests scores in exporimental group. Conclusion: I can be concluded that mental practice can improve not only motor skill that mentally performed but also the balance of the elderly.