Evaluation of the static balance of elderly females after training with pilates method

The objective to evaluate the effects of Pilates method in static balance of healthy elderly females. Were selected 52 elderly females (66 ± 4 years), volunteers who met the inclusion and exclusion criteria previously defined. The study had three stages: evaluation, intervention and revaluation. The stages of evaluation and reevaluation consisted of general evaluation and implementation of the Protocol of static balance (Tinetti protocol). After evaluation, were divided randomly into Pilates group (GP: n = 27) and control group (CG: n = 25). The Pilates group participated in Pilates exercises twice weekly for eight weeks, with six minutes of duration each. Descriptive statistics were compiled using the Shapiro-Wilk test. The level of significance was considered to be p<0.05. The Student-T dependent test demonstrated significant difference favorable in the post-test of the Pilates group for static balance (p=0,0001). The Mann-Whitney test demonstrated significant difference in the relation inter-groups (post-PG x post-CG) in static balance (p=0,0002). It was observed that the Pilates practice can offer significant improvement in the static balance of elderly women.