The Effect of Intervention Programs on Balance of Individual with Down Syndrome: a ‎Systematic Review

People with Down’s syndrome are characterized by impaired psychomotor development. One of the characteristics of motor development of these patients is imbalance. Therefore, performing exercise interventions is one way to reduce the imbalance in this group. Few studies have examined various exercise interventions to reduce or improve this disorder in people with Down syndrome. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to summarize the findings of exercise intervention studies on the balance of people with Down’s syndrome.

A systematic review of experimental and quasi-experimental studies was performed, which are designed to influence exercise interventions on improving balance in people with Down’s syndrome. The searches were conducted between the period of 2002 and 2020 in PubMed, Web of Science, Medline, Google scholar, Scopus databases and also in Persian databases, Scientific information database of Jahad Daneshgahi, MedLib (Comprehensive Bank of Medical Articles), IranMedex Iranian Research Institute for Information Science and Technology (IRANDOC), Magazine Publications Database (MAGIRAN) and with a combination of Down’s syndrome keywords, balance, exercise program. Studies were selected using predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Data extraction was performed and an evaluation form was submitted to collect the main features of each article.

Out of 242 identified articles, by removing duplicates and reading the full text, 27 articles met the inclusion criteria for the final study. Findings showed that exercise interventions are more effective than control conditions to improve balance in people with Down’s syndrome. Also, studies showed that exercise programs and rehabilitation protocols have a positive effect on the balance of people with Down’s syndrome. Only super brain yoga exercises did not have a significant impact on static balance. Some studies also showed that the combined exercise program had a better effect on the balance of people with Down’s syndrome compared to other exercise programs.

The review of this study shows that in order to support health professionals in selecting, developing and implementing interventions to increase the physical health of people with Down Syndrome, more accurate training interventions and exercise reports are necessary. However, the present findings of this study should be considered, given the small number of studies and their limitations.