Background: Sensorineural hearing loss is the most common type of permanent hearing impairment and results in postural control and motor deficits in children that may affect or delay all developmental indicators.
Objective: The purpose of the study was to investigate the efficacy of balance exercises intervention on postural control-related impairment in children with sensorineural hearing loss.
Methods: Forty students of both genders, ages ranging from 10 to 16 years, diagnosed with severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss, were selected from the Public School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in El-Minia district, Minia governorate, Egypt. They divided randomly into two groups, 20 (study group), received balance exercises in addition to their ordinary daily living activities. Meanwhile, the control group of 20 children practiced only the ordinary daily living activities. The outcome was assessed pre-treatment and post-treatment by Humac Balance System and Bruininks-Oseretsky Test (BOT-2) subtest (5) for balance.
Results: Regarding the Humac balance system and subtest (5) of BOT-2, there was a statistically significant difference between pre-treatment data and post-treatment data of the study group with a p value equal to 0.036 or less. However, no statistically significant difference was observed in the control group with a p value equal to 0.096 or more. Finally, there was a statistically significant difference between the groups with respect to the post-treatment data, where the p value was 0.014 or less.
Conclusion: Postural control of children with sensorineural hearing loss has been improved by balance exercises.
Keywords: Sensorineural hearing loss; balance exercise; postural control and Children.