Effect of six weeks shallow and deep water exercises on static balance and pain of girls with patellofemoral pain

Patellofemoral syndrome is one of the common injuries especially among women which is accompanied by a pain in patella. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effects of the water exercise in two different depths on the balance and pain caused by patellofemoral pain in female students.
Method and procedure: A total of 32 female students (age: 6.22±8.1, weight: 7.53±5.6 kg, height: 1.56±.1 cm( from among 60 students with patellofemoral pain were selected and randomly divided into three groups: shallow water, deep water, and control groups. Static balance was measured before and after water exercise, three times per week, using Biodex Balance System and pain was measured using Visual Analogue Scale. The control group did not perform any exercises during the study.
The mixed-repeated measure showed that there was a significant difference between the pre-test and post-test for all the three groups (p=0.001). There were significant differences between the pre-test and post-test in both water exercise groups in balance )shallow: 0.016, deep: p=0.047; respectively (and pain )shallow: p=0.046, deep: p=0.00), while no significant difference was found for the same variables in the control group (balance: p=0.063, pain: p=0.468, respectively).
It can be concluded that water exercise can improve balance and decrease knee pain among female students. Despite more improvement and less pain in deep water group, there were no significant differences observed in balance and pain between the two experimental groups. It can be suggested that water exercise can be used as a modality protocol treatment for improving balance and pain among female patients with patellofemoral pain.