A Comparative Study on Effect of Aquatic Therapy Versus Land-Based Therapy on Balance in Persons with Parkinsons Disease

Background and Objectives: Balance dysfunction is one of the major incapacitating symptom of Parkinson's disease. This is further associated with a loss of equilibrium, sudden falls, progressive loss of independence and immobility. Aquatic therapy and Land-based therapy, both the methods work on different physiological principles to improve balance. Hence, objective of the study was to compare the effect of Aquatic therapy and Land based therapy on Balance in persons with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Subjects: 22 subjects, after filling the written informed consent, were divided into 2 groups by Convenience Sampling method. Method: Group A received Aquatic Therapy and Group B received Land-Based therapy. Both the groups received the treatment for 6 weeks. Pre and post intervention BBS score and TUG time was documented. Data were analyzed for both the groups. Result: There was a statistically significant difference in both the groups ( p less than0.05) while the mean difference was higher in Group A compared to Group B. Conclusion: The present study concludes that exercises performed on both the environments i. e. water and land are beneficial to PD patients but Aquatic therapy is more effective in improving balance as compared to the Land –based therapy.