Effects of whole body vibration training on balance in adolescents with and without Down syndrome.
Whole-body vibration gives teens with Down syndrome a small balance boost, but only under the hardest eyes-closed-soft-surface test.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Villarroya et al. (2013) ran a 20-week whole-body vibration program for teens with Down syndrome. Half stood on a vibrating plate three times a week. The rest kept their normal gym class.
Before and after, every teen tried to stand still on a soft pad with eyes closed. Researchers timed how long they kept balance.
What they found
Only the vibration group stayed upright a little longer on the soft pad with eyes closed. The gain was small and showed up only under that tough sensory mix.
On firm ground or with eyes open, both groups looked the same.
How this fits with other research
Zur et al. (2013) tested balance in kids with mild IDD. They saw the same eyes-closed-on-foam task catch vestibular problems. Their data say: if the vestibulo-ocular reflex is weak, balance drops fast. Adoración’s teens improved only in that same hard condition, so WBV may shore up the very system Oz flagged.
Velghe et al. (2024) is running a 40-hour balance camp for children with DCD. Like Adoración, they use an intense schedule to push postural control. Both studies target neuro-different youth and aim for real-life stability gains.
Hwang et al. (2013) reviewed mindfulness for developmental disabilities. They found calm-down benefits last when practice is long. Adoración’s 20-week timeline fits that same long-game idea, even though the tools differ—vibration versus mindful breathing.
Why it matters
If you work with teens with Down syndrome, adding a vibrating platform to the sensory-motor routine is low cost and easy to run. Keep the challenge high—eyes closed, soft surface—and track seconds balanced as your probe. Pair it with vestibular screening (Head Impulse test) to see who gains most.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The present study aimed to determine whether a whole body vibration training program (WBV) is able to improve static standing balance in adolescents with and without Down syndrome (DS). Thirty adolescents with DS aged 11-20 years (DSG) and 27 adolescent, age/sex matched, without DS (CG) joined the study. Participants of each group were divided into two comparable groups, those who performed WVB (in DSG: VDSG; in CG: VCG) and those who did not perform WVB (in DSG: nVDSG; in CG: nVCG). Static-standing-balance under four conditions (C1: open-eyes/fixed-foot-support; C2: closed-eyes/fixed-foot-support; C3: open-eyes/compliant-foot-support; C4: closed-eyes/compliant-foot-support) was examine, before and after a 20-week WBV training program. For balance study, Postural-Parameters (PPs), based on center of pressure (COP) oscillations (anterior/posterior and medial/lateral COP excursion and COP mean velocity), and PPs ratios among the four conditions were calculated. After WBV training, no significant differences were found in any parameter in the VCG and nVCG and neither in the nVDSG, but there was a decrease of mean values in the analyzed PPs under C4, with significant differences in medial/lateral COP excursion and COP mean velocity, and a significant decrease in the ratio C4/C1 of the mean velocity in VDSG. Therefore, WBV training had positive effects in the balance of DS adolescents although only under specific conditions, with vision and somatosensory input altered. The positive results of this study are encouraging and open a wide field of research, looking for the most efficient program for this population.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2013 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2013.06.015