Reabilitação vestibular nas disfunções de equilíbrio e incapacidade funcional de idosos com instabilidade postural: uma revisão da literatura

Abstract

The growth of the elderly population is a worldwide reality and in Brazil has been happening very fast in the last decades. Changes in structures and systems of the human body through the process of senescence are responsible for frequent complaints in the elderly population, among which are those of dizziness, vertigo and imbalance. The aging of the visual, vestibular, somatosensory, central nervous and musculoskeletal systems, mainly affect the postural control, being this of fundamental importance for the autonomy of these individuals. Vestibular rehabilitation aims to improve the overall balance, quality of life and spatial orientation of patients with dizziness; through exercise protocols, making it possible to restore balance, prevent recurrences, aiming to reintegrate the individual into the environment, in order to recover their self-confidence. The present study aims to perform a literature review to verify the effect of Vestibular Rehabilitation in the Elderly. The search was performed in Medline and PEDRo electronic databases, initially resulting in 105 publications. The process of analyzing the studies involved reading titles, abstracts and full texts. After all the phases, 06 articles fulfilled the inclusion criteria of the review. In the manual search, other 03 relevant publications were identified, totaling 9 articles. In view of the above, it was found evidence that Vestibular Rehabilitation was able to improve the balance and functional capacity of the elderly with complaints or diagnoses of vestibular syndrome, providing an improvement in the quality of life of this population.