Vibration Therapy as a Rehabilitation Intervention for Postural Training and Fall Prevention

The occurrence of distal radius fractures is well known to be a sentinel event as these fractures are associated with 2 to 4 times increased risk of subsequent hip fractures in elderly patients. Studies have shown a significantly increased degree of postural sway in these patients, which is strongly associated with recurrent falls. The latest Cochrane systematic review also shows a lack of evidence on the effectiveness of current rehabilitation interventions. Low-magnitude high-frequency vibration (LMHFV) is a biophysical intervention that provides non-invasive, systemic mechanical stimulation and has been shown to improve muscle strength and balancing abilities in healthy, independent and active elderly women in our previous clinical study. Our animal studies have also shown LMHFV promoting myogenic proliferation and hypertrophy, muscle contractibility, and increased fast-fiber switching to muscle fiber type IIA.Previous rehabilitation studies have used clinical functional performance tests, which lack sensitivity and specificity in predicting impaired postural control. The Biodex Balance System SD consists of a dynamic balance platform interfaced with computer software, which offers objective and reliable tests for postural stability and fall risk. This study is a single-blinded, prospective randomized controlled trial to investigate the effect of 6 months of LMHFV after a distal radius fracture in elderly patients. Patients will be recruited and randomized to control or LMHFV group by envelope drawing of computer-generated random numbers. The intervention group will undergo LMHFV at 35Hz, 0.3g (peak to peak magnitude), displacement of \<0.1mm, 20 min/day, at least 3 days/week for 6 months in community centres. Control group will remain in their habitual life style and no vibration used. Outcome assessments will be performed at baseline 0 days, 6 weeks, 3 months and 6 months. Outcome assessor and statistician will be blinded to group allocation. The primary out