Deans' stroke musings: Efficacy of whole body vibration exercise in older people: a systematic review

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Friday, May 11, 2012

Efficacy of whole body vibration exercise in older people: a systematic review

Ok maybe we should get therapists to setup a research study on this for stroke survivors. It wouldn't be too expensive and the danger would be to make sure they have stopped vibrating before trying to walk.
http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/09638288.2011.626486

Purpose: The aim of this study was to perform a systematic review of the literature on whole body vibration programs in older population and a meta-analysis of randomized controlled clinical trials. Method: A search was conducted in MEDLINE, EMBASE, CENTRAL, CINAHL and PsychINFO databases. We included randomized controlled trials evaluating the efficacy and safety of whole body vibration training in older populations compared to conventional exercise or control groups that assessed balance, muscle strength, falls, bone mineral density and adverse events. Results: Sixteen trials met the inclusion criteria. Comparing the vibration and the control group, we found that vibration significantly improved knee muscle isometric strength (18.30 Nm, 95% CI 7.95–28.65), muscle power (10.44 W, 95% CI 2.85–18.03) and balance control (Tinetti test: 4.5 points, 95% CI 0.95–8.11). Comparison with a conventional exercise showed that the only significant difference was bone mineral density in the femoral neck (0.04 g/cm–2, 95% CI 0.02–0.07). There were no serious complications in most of studies. Conclusion: Whole body vibration training may improve strength, power and balance in comparison with a control group, although these effects are not apparent when compared with a group that does conventional exercise.

Implications for Rehabilitation

Physical exercise is effective for improving balancing and walking, muscle strength in the legs, and cardiovascular resistance, and decreasing the risk of falling in older persons.
Whole body vibration training can decrease the risk of falling related to muscle weakness or balance disorders in older people when compared with a control group, although these effects are not apparent when compared with a conventional exercise.
Evidence is not conclusive to assess the effect of whole body vibration training on the incidence of falls.
Safety concerns related to whole body vibration have not been identified.