Comparison of Rocker Board and Stable Surface Training on Postural Stability, Balance and Gait in Stroke

Stroke is the second cause of death and the third cause of disability worldwide. It leads towards severe disability having a great impact upon independent activities of daily living. Postural stability and balance is often affected by strokes. Balance is a complex function with dynamic and static components. It is a major determinant of community ambulation and gait performance following strokes. Falls in post-stroke patients commonly occur due to impairment of balance. Hence, one of the primary objectives in stroke rehabilitation is to restore postural stability and functional balance, which is a combination of dynamic, static and reactive balance. For improving postural stability and balance one such technique is the utilization of a rocker board, where a platform positioned on an unstable surface is used to challenge balance. Whilst rocker boards have been used effectively for, postural stability, injury prevention, rehabilitation and balance enhancement. Improvements in rocker board performance may be attributable to one or more of the following: muscle strengthening, enhanced intersegmental coordination, increase in brain activity in the supplementary motor area and/or enhanced feed-forward and feed-backward postural control mechanisms. Postural instability limits lower limb functional activities, hence; rapid and optimal improvement of postural control in stroke patients is essential for their independence, social participation and general health. Improvement in postural stability have a great impact upon balance and gait. Rocker board training is also effective for gait and trunk balance in stroke patients. Postural stability increases due to unstable surface because perturbations felt by patients and consequent trails to compensate while doing exercises on the tilted Rocker Board activate the motor system of the patients. Neural plasticity may be enhanced by regular and repeated administration of this training. The trunk exercises on an unstable surface sensitize the muscle spindle through gamma motor neurons, thereby improving motor output which influences the stability of joint. Exercises on an unstable surface increases the external swing which more effectively encourages postural orientation by forcing faster modifications of the sensory and motor systems and also assists in the postural strategy of self-postural control. The trunk stabilization in stroke patients in an important prognostic factor of the recovery of balance ability and functional ambulation. The gait and balance improvement is because the motor cortex precedes from proximal to distal, the improved level of proximal trunk control leads to improvement in distal lower limb control which helped in altering better balance and gait. The relationship between postural control and improved mobility is already established. Through this study we want to improve postural stability through rocker based training and ultimately patient's dynamic balance and gait so functional capability of stroke patients can be enhanced.