Balance Maturity of Indian Children Using CTSIB

Balance assessment is as major component of physical therapy assessment. Among the various scales used for assessing balance, the CTSIB is an inexpensive, easily administered test. The CTSIB is based on the concept developed by Nashner (1982) and requires the subject to maintain standing balance for 30seconds under six sensory conditions that either eliminates input or produces inaccurate vision and surface orientation inputs. Using this balance assessment tool, studies have been done on younger, middle and older age groups with and without neurological deficits. But very few studies have been done on pediatric population. However no studies have been done which takes into account the interaction of different sensory conditions, age and gender on balance. Therefore this study is intended to determine the influence of different sensory interactions, age and gender on balance in children.

Four hundred and eighty children aged 8–12 years were screened to fulfill the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Then all subjects were divided into two groups according to age and they were again divided into two groups according to gender. Then the subjects were explained about the procedure, and asked to maintain tandem standing position under six sensory conditions, they had to keep on standing with each foot in position until the examiner said “stop”. Then the subject was tested under all six sensory conditions for maximum of 30 seconds.

The data was then tabulated and subjected to statistical analysis to determine whether correlation existed between the mean CTSIB score and the age, gender and different sensory conditions.

• The study determined that there is significant effect of age and gender on balance.

• A correlation existed between the sensory interaction and balance maturation in children.

• And there was no significant difference between C-1(eyes open on the floor) and C-3 (wearing conflict dome on the floor) on balance performance in children. From this it was concluded that with the increase in age the balance performance will improve and during childhood girls appear to do better than boys in balance performance. It was also concluded that there is influence of different sensory interactions on balance.