Alsubiheen A, et al. Med Sci Monit. 2015.
Sifu Harvey Kurland was the Lead t'ai chi
ch'uan instructor for this study and was assisted by Myra Allen. The Symmetrical
Yang Style form was taught to all participants similar to our regular classes.
Testing was done by a team of Physical Therapists. All participants showed a
significant improvement in balance after 8 weeks of training the Tchoung-Yang
Style T'ai Chi Ch'uan Form. Interview with The Chief Researcher showed between a
200% to 300% improvement in balance. Of interest is that the post test was
stopped after a set time so improvement may have been much better but total post
test was stopped at a predetermined time. Abstract
BACKGROUND: One of the effects of diabetes
mellitus (DM), peripheral neuropathy, affects the sensation in the feet and can
increase the chance of falling. The purpose of the study was to investigate the
effect of 8 weeks of Tai Chi (TC) training combined with mental imagery (MI) on
improving balance in people with diabetes and an age matched control group.
MATERIAL AND METHODS: Seventeen healthy
subjects and 12 diabetic sedentary subjects ranging from 40-80 years of age were
recruited. All subjects in both groups attended a Yang style of TC class using
MI strategies, 2 sessions a week for 8 weeks. Each session was one hour long.
Measures were taken using a balance platform test, an Activities-specific
Balance Confidence (ABC) Scale, a one leg standing test (OLS), functional reach
test (FRT) and hemoglobin A1C. These measures were taken twice, pre and
post-study, for both groups.
RESULTS: Both groups experienced significant
improvements in ABC, OLS, FRT (P<0.01) after completing 8 weeks of TC exercise
with no significant improvement between groups. Subjects using the balance
platform test demonstrated improvement in balance in all different tasks with no
significant change between groups. There was no significant change in HbA1C for
the diabetic group.
CONCLUSIONS: All results showed an improvement
in balance in the diabetic and the control groups; however, no significant
difference between the groups was observed. Since the DM group had more problems
with balance impairment at baseline than the control, the diabetic group showed
the most benefit from the TC exercise.
Longer version of the
article is found at
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/26454826/