Sensory Organization Abilities During Upright Stance in Late-Onset Alzheimer's-Type Dementia

Abstract

Postural stability was compared between individuals with mild and moderate Alzheimer's dementia and healthy older adults, using the Sensory Organization Test. Interestingly, the moderate group performed more like the healthy group than the mild group. Significant differences (p ≤ .008) in postural stability were found between the mild group and both the healthy and moderate Alzheimer's groups when vestibular information was critical for stability. Additional differences were found between the healthy and mild groups when vision was inaccurate. These findings suggest a decreased visual dependence in the later stages of the illness, possibly due to the visual disturbances associated with disease progression.

Notes

This work supported by a grant from the California State Special Fund for Research, Scholarship, & Creative Activity.

An abstract of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the North American Society for Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity, Baltimore, MD, June 2002.

The authors are grateful to Dr. Courtney Hall for her expertise and assistance with this project.

∗Healthy older-adult group reported higher frequencies of physical activity than both the mild and moderate Alzheimer's disease groups (p < .01).

Large effect sizes between groups by SOT condition ( > 0.80).