Medial-lateral postural stability in community-dwelling women over 40 years of age

Objective: To document the change in medial-lateral balance in women aged between 40 and 80 years. Design: A cross-sectional study of six measures of medial-lateral balance was undertaken. Setting: The Betty Byrne Henderson Centre for Women and Ageing, Royal Women's Hospital, Australia. Subjects: Five hundred and three community-dwelling women between 40 and 80 years of age were randomly recruited from a large metropolitan region with 366 subjects admitted after applying exclusion criteria. Measurements: The clinical measurements included the lateral reach and step tests while laboratory measurements were gathered from the Balance Master software programs for unilateral stance and limits of stability. Results: A significant decline in all measures (p<0.02) was evident between the forties and sixties age decade cohorts. The clinical step test showed a significant (p<0.001) decline between the forties and fifties groups. A significant correlation was shown between step test and unilateral stance (p<0.001) and movement velocity, reaction time and end-point excursion centre of gravity (COG) on the limits of stability test (p<0.001). Conclusions: This new evidence demonstrates that there is a significant decline in medial-lateral balance in women that occurs between their forties and sixties. Suggestions for further study were made.