Comparing the effects of time of day on balance performance in elderly

Introduction: During aging, some changes occur in all organs that led to increase impairment in balance meanwhile
the circadian cycle also isn’t ineffective. The aim of this study was to detective the effect of a balance training
program in the morning and afternoon on static and dynamic balance in healthy elderly.
Materials and Method: In this quasi-experimental study 24 healthy elderly subjects (n=24)with no history of
regular exercise (68.7 ±5.5 years old, height, 1.6 m±8.2, weight (68.4±8.9) kg) were selected to purpose in this
study. The subjects were randomly divided into two groups balance exercises in the morning (n=6)and afternoon
(n=6) groups. To assess static balance, single leg standing balance test and to estimate the dynamic balance test,
Stars balance test (SEBT) was used. Statistical analysis using paired-T and-T independent test at 5% level were
performed using SPSS version 20 (P>0.05).
Result: The significant difference was seen between the dominant leg static balance - open eyes, dominant leg static
balance - open eyes, dominant leg static balance - closed eyes and non-dominant leg static balance - closed eyes in
the morning and afternoon (P<0.05) so training the elderly had a greater impact on the balance of the afternoon.
About the dynamic balance between morning and afternoon wasn’t seen significant difference (P>0.05), so that the
afternoon exercises didn’t have a greater influence on dynamic balance in elderly people.
Discussion: It can be concluded that, balance exercise isn't effective in the afternoon than in the morning, on static
balance. The difference in dynamic balance at the time of the test subjects were not observed, so that a dynamic
balance in the evening than in the morning did not show much difference. Therefore, a special time for improving
balance in older adults has not been determined.