Whole body vibration on people with sequelae of polio

ABSTRACT

Purpose: The purpose was to explore the feasibility of whole body vibration (WBV) on polio survivors with/without post-polio syndrome (PPS) by studying its effects on walking speed (10-m walk test), endurance (2-min walk test), pain severity/interference (Brief Pain Inventory [BPI]), sleep quality (Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index), fatigue (Fatigue Severity Scale), leg strength (manual muscle testing and hand-held dynamometry), and muscle cramping (written logs). Methods: Fifteen individuals completed the study, participating in eight sessions in two 4-week blocks. Participants started with ten 1-min vibration bouts/session, increasing to 20 min. Low (amplitude 4.53 mm, g force 2.21) and higher (amplitude 8.82 mm, g force 2.76) intensity blocked intervention occurred in random order crossover design. Blinded testing ensued before/after intervention blocks and at follow-up. Results: No study-related adverse events occurred. Participants starting first with higher intensity intervention improved in walking speed (p = 0.017). BPI pain severity significantly improved (p = 0.049) after higher intensity intervention. No significant changes were found after low intensity vibration or in other outcome measures. Conclusions: WBV appears to be a safe exercise for this population. Long-term use in polio survivors needs to be researched, particularly in reducing barriers to participation to promote the physical aspects of health.

KEYWORDS:

• Post-polio syndrome
• weight-bearing exercise

Acknowledgments

Poster was presented at the American Physical Therapy Association Combined Sections Meeting, Anaheim, California, USA, February, 2016. The Poster is listed in Journal of Neurologic Physical Therapy 40: 53. We wish to acknowledge the following people for their assistance in this study: Arianne Stoker, PT, DPT, Kelly Hodges, PT, DPT, Mariana Sanjuan, PT, DPT, and Maggie Strange, PT, DPT for help as DPT students during vibration sessions and data collection, and Zoheb Allam, MS, and Rene Paulson, PhD for statistical assistance.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Post-polio Health International 2013–2014.