Weighted Backpack Device Helps Reduce Fall Risk

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Elderly women with curved spines may be able to improve their balance and lower their risk of falls by using a weighted support device for their backs and participating in an exercise program, according to new study findings.

The women studied had osteoporosis-related curvature of the spine, or kyphotic posture, which causes strain on the spinal cord, can cause back pain, and may increase the risk of falls. Previous studies have shown that the use of a weighted backpack can increase a person's perception of his or her spinal positioning.

In the current study, Dr. Mehrsheed Sinaki, of the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota, and colleagues investigated whether such a device may also reduce the risk of falls among at risk elderly women.

"Most studies of falls address the effects of sedatives, weakness of the lower extremity muscles and neuromuscular diseases," Sinaki said in a Mayo Clinic statement. "What we wanted to see in this study was the effects of intervention to shift the center of gravity, and improve back strength and gait."

During the first stage of the study, the researchers found that the 12 women with curved spines were more likely to fall, had less muscle strength and had worse balance than did a comparison group of 13 healthy women, they report in this month's issue of the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

The researchers then assigned the study participants with curved spines to a four-week program in which they performed exercises to improve their balance, while wearing a fitted harness with a suspended weight, to help them better center their own weight over their legs. The weight on their backs was to counter the frontal weight of their torso. The women were instructed to wear the harness, essentially a weighted backpack, for 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the afternoon.

At the end of the four weeks, the researchers write, "the positive results of this intervention were surprising to us."

The women showed improvement in their balance as well as their height, the report indicates. Their risk of falling decreased, their back strength improved, and they reported experiencing less back pain than they had at the start of the study.

Further, although the women did not experience improvement in the strength of their lower extremity muscles, they were able to walk faster, and otherwise exhibited improved gait, which the investigators attributed to their "improved balance and spinal posture."

"If mobility can be increased by improving balance, we can more successfully improve strength and general health," Sinaki and her team write.

In a commentary, Dr. Allan F. Tencer, of Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, Washington, writes that the improvements seen in Sinaki's study "have implications for reducing the incidence of falls" among elderly women with curved spines and preventing the "downstream potentially life-altering consequences of falling."

SOURCE: Mayo Clinic Proceedings, July 2005.