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Abstract
Objectives Our aims were (1) to compare the sensory organisation of balance control and balance strategies between women with fibromyalgia (FM) and healthy women; (2) to investigate which sensory component, that is, vestibular, visual or somato-sensory, is the most affected in FM and (3) to determine the associations between the functional independence measure (FIM) and balance responses in FM.
Design Cross-sectional observational study.
Setting Urban regional hospital and university (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain).
Participants Twenty women with FM and 20 matched healthy women.
Primary/secondary outcome measures The sensory organisation test (SOT) was used to determine postural sway and balance during six different conditions with subjects in a standing position. The FIM was used to determine the level of functional independence in daily life activities (ADL). Between-group differences were analysed with analysis of covariance, and the Spearman's test was used for correlations.
Results Significant differences between-groups and between-conditions were found for all SOT conditions (all, p<0.001): women with FM showed lower scores being the vestibular score the most affected. Different correlations between SOT conditions and some specific ADL were observed in the FM group: bathing activity and balance condition 6 (rs=0.541; p<0.001), bed transfers activity and conditions 2 (rs=0.491; p<0.001) and 3 (rs=0.510; p<0.001), positioning strategy six and dressing the upper (rs=0.530; p<0.001) or lower (rs=0.562; p<0.001) body, and toileting (rs=0.521; p<0.001): the greater the loss of balance, the greater the interference on some daily life activities.
Conclusions Women with FM exhibited balance deficiencies and used different strategies for maintaining their balance in standing, which was associated with a negative impact on functional independence.
- postural balance
- fibromyalgia
- patient positioning
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Footnotes
Contributors Concept development (provided idea for the research): MP. Design (plane the methods to generate the results): MP, EH, RM, DP, JA, MS, CF. Supervision (provided oversight, responsible for organization and implementation, writing of the manuscript): MP, EH and CF. Data collection/processing (responsible for experiments, patient management, organization, or reporting data): RM, DP, and MS. Analysis/interpretation (responsible for statistical analysis, evaluation, and presentation of the results): MP, EH, DP, JA, CF. Literature search (performed the literature search): MP, EH, RM, DP, and MS. Writing (responsible for writing a substantive part of the manuscript): MP, EH, RM, DP, JA, MS, CF. Critical review (revised manuscript for intellectual content, this does not relate to spelling and grammar checking): MP, EH and CF.
Funding This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not for profit sectors.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent Obtained
Ethics approval Human Subjects Committee Approval Letter HUFA-URJC 032.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data sharing statement Extra data can be accessed via the Dryad data repository at http://datadryad.org/ with the doi:10.5061/dryad.3j6rr.