Background and Purpose: The incidence of diabetes is increasing rapidly in India, so as the complications are. The most significant complication is peripheral neuropathy which leads to weakness of muscles and lack of protective sensation in the foot because of demyelination of sensory and motor nerves. In this context patient will lose balance, feel difficulty while walking and may fall. So balance and gait re-education plays a vital role to improve functional ability, postural control and to reduce falls. Till date many studies have been done to improve balance by using unstable surfaces. Comparison of two unstable surfaces is still lacking. So this study is intended to know whether wobble board is best or stability disc to improve balance in diabetic individuals.

Materials and Methods: 30 participants with diabetic neuropathy were randomly assigned into two groups; group A (n=15) underwent exercises on wobble board and group B(n=15) received exercises on stability disc for 30 min for 8 weeks. Pre and post intervention balance was assessed by Berg balance sale and gait was assessed by TUG.

Results: Results of Berg Balance Scale were analysed using non parametric tests and TUG scores were analysed using t tests. The observed differences of values were tested with the Z at 95% level of significance (p<0.05).

Conclusion: Both groups have showed good upshots in recovery after the study. The subjects who were trained on stability disc showed substantial improvement when compared to subjects trained on wobble board (p<0.05). Hence we conclude that stability disc is more effective than wobble board to improve balance in diabetic neuropathy patients.

Keywords: Diabetic neuropathy, Balance, Gait, Wobble board, Stability disc.

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Sowjanya Maruboyina

Department of Neuro Physiotherapy

DDCOP, AMS, Hyderabad-500044, India

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