Informational Manual Therapy to Improve Standing Balance

Objectives: The aim of this study is to assess the effect of Informational Manual Therapy (IMT) on quiet standing and quality of life in healthy individuals. The IMT also is known as the Poyet-Pialoux method, is a holistic, no orthopedic, and soft manual therapy. Design: This is a one-group pretest-posttest design. It is a within-subjects experiment in which each participant is tested first under the control condition and then under the treatment condition. Setting: University laboratory. Intervention: One IMT session was performed on 57 healthy individuals aged from 18 to 65 years. They were grouped into three age groups. The treatment session was performed by 5 therapists on two days. The primary outcome was quite standing assessed by the SATEL force platform. Secondary outcomes were bodily pain assessed by the pain sections of the 36-Item Short Form Survey (SF-36) and quality of life by EQ-5D-3L (mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/discomfort, and anxiety/depression). The primary outcome was evaluated before and immediately after treatment and after 7-10 days. The secondary outcomes were assessed after treatment and 3 weeks later.