Análise da concordância entre instrumentos de avaliação do equilíbrio corporal em idosos

BACKGROUND: The diagnosis of clinical parameters associated with falls in the elderly has become a major challenge for the scientific community. Despite the existence of several tools aiming to assess body balance in the elderly, it is still scarce the number of studies that have investigated and discussed the agreement between different methods. OBJECTIVE: To analyze the correlation between tests used to assess the body balance in the elderly. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional, observational study conducted with 30 healthy female community-dwelling elderly volunteers with different levels of physical conditioning. The Functional Reach Test (FRT), the Berg Balance Scale (BBS), the Timed Up and Go (TUG) and the Performance-Oriented Mobility Assessment of Balance (POMA) were used. The data analysis was performed by using the Spearmam's rank correlation coefficient, with a significance level of 5% (p<0.05). RESULTS: There was positive and moderate correlation between the FRT and BBS (r=0.4845, p=0.0067), between FRT and POMA (r=0.4136, p=0.0231), and between BBS and POMA (r=0.6088, p=0.0004). CONCLUSION: The tests are complementary since they showed specific and distinct limitations. It is reasonable, therefore, to use these instruments together to get better assessment of elderly body balance.