Valoración del equilibrio en pacientes con Parkinson a través del índice de Berg en centros residenciales del adulto mayor, Cuenca 2021

Abstract

Background: The Parkinsons Disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative and infrequent disease, it is the second after dementia of the Alzheimer's type, it affects 1 or 2 in 100 elderly people older than 60 years and it can be caused by environmental or genetics factors. This patology brings significative disturbances like: tremors, bradykinesia, rigidity and imbalances that lead to a high rate of disability that directly affects the quality of life of those who suffer it.

General objective: To determine disturbances of balance by ussing the Berg Balance Scale application into Parkinson’s patients of the residential centers for elderly in Cuenca.

Methodology: descriptive and cross-sectional study in 15 older patients of a lot of residential centers from Cuenca, to whom the Berg Balance Scale was applied. The results were processed with Excel and the SPSS V15.0 software and displayed in tables.

Results: It was determined that patients with Parkinson's disease, mostly comprised age range between 81 to 90 years, predominantly males. In addition, to present a high risk for falls, according to the Berg scale and stages III and IV predominated in the population, however, when correlating the variables such as: age, sex, disease stage and alteration of balance, no significant relationship was found.

Conclusion: The Balance Berg Scale is a useful tool to measure the balance disturbance and the risk of falls in elderly people with Parkinson's disease, it showed excellent validity and reliability. Although the instrument used was adequate; it is necessary to mention that the results don't show a significant relationship with the proposed variables, since the sample for this study was small.