Effectiveness of Otago Exercise to Improve Balance, Quality of Life and to Reduce Risk of Fall in Hemiplegic Patients

BACKGROUND: Hemiplegic patients have a two-fold higher risk of falling than other patients of the same age or gender. Otago exercises are the interventions given for fall prevention in elderly. It is a muscle strengthening and balance retraining program. The objectives of the study is analysing the effectiveness Of Otago exercise in improving Balance, Quality of Life and to reduce Risk of Fall in hemiplegic patients. METHODS: 30 subjects satisfying the inclusion criteria were allocated to 2 groups of 15 members each. Group A received Conventional Physiotherapy alone and Group B received Otago exercise program along with Conventional physiotherapy. The participants were treated for three times per week for 4 weeks. The subjects were assessed by Berg Balance Scale, SF-36 Questionnaire and Timed up and go Test. RESULTS& DISCUSSION: Statistical analysis was done using SPSS Statistics 20. Significant improvement in all main outcome parameters was observed in response to the intervention. Between group analysis showed a statistical difference in favour of Otago exercise program, in the parameters of Balance, Quality of life and Risk of fall. CONCLUSION: Repetitive training using the Otago exercise will leads a significant improvement in balance, quality of life and significant reduction in fall risk in hemiplegic patients.