Vibrating Insoles May Improve Balance

Oct. 2, 2003 -- Wearing vibrating shoe insoles may help the elderly improve their balance and prevent potentially dangerous falls.

A new study suggests that the experimental insoles may one day be effective in helping elderly persons become more stable on their feet and overcome common balance problems.

Researchers say the somatosensory nervous system that provides touch and position sense declines with age and is associated with loss of balance among the elderly. By stimulating this part of the nervous system with randomly vibrating shoe insoles, they say elderly people may be able to improve their balance and posture control.

Insoles for Better Balance

For the study, which appears in the Oct. 4 issue of The Lancet, researchers embedded three vibrating elements into gel shoe insoles. Each insole received a vibrating noise signal that was controlled by the researchers.

Researchers then had a group of 15 young people (average age 23) and 12 elderly people (average age 73) stand quietly on the insoles with their eyes closed for 30-second intervals while monitors measured the degree of sway (lack of balance).

The study showed that use of the vibrating insoles improved the balance of both the elderly and young participants.

Researchers also found that elderly people gained more in balance control by using the shoe insoles than the young people. In fact, with the aid of the vibrating insoles, the elderly participants achieved the same degree of balance that the younger ones had without stimulation.

Researcher Attila A. Priplata, of Boston University, and colleagues say those findings suggest that developing noise-based devices, such as randomly vibrating shoe insoles, might be effective in improving balance and help the elderly overcome some of the instability that is caused by age-related sensory loss.