1Dr. D.Y. Patil College of Physiotherapy, Pimpri, Pune 411018.
2Manipal College of Allied Health Sciences, Manipal, Karnataka 576104.
The Pediatric balance scale, a modification of Berg balance scale (PBS) is widely used for assessing balance in school age children. However, there is scant literature about the normative data for the use of this scale in children as majority of research on PBS has been done on children with mild to moderate motor impairments. Also, there is a dearth of literature on normative data using PBS in Indian population.
This study was undertaken to find out the normative data in Indian Population using this scale.
Five hundred and sixty three children between the age group of two years six months to eight years, studying in different schools in India were identified and selected for the study. The children were tested using the PBS on fourteen tasks. The procedure was explained to the children and their parents/teachers/guardians. After completion of each task, the child was given a score on a 0 to 4 scale. Scores obtained by the child after performing the tests as given in the pediatric balance scale was used as the outcome measure.
The Pearson's correlation coefficient was used to find the correlation of age group and height with the score on the PBS. An independent t – test was used to compare the scores obtained by males and females.
The results showed good correlation between the age groups and the score attained (r = 0.774, p = 0.00). There was also good correlation seen between heights of children with the scores attained on the PBS scale (r = 0.735, p = 0.00). The two genders did not differ significantly between themselves in their scoring. (p = 0.807)
The scores attained increase with the age and the scores in both the genders increased similarly with the age. This material was based on work supported by the department of physiotherapy, MCOAHS, (MAHE), Manipal.
