Citation

Kurpiers N, Vogler T, Flohr S (2018) Effects of an Intense One-Week Skiing Program on Balance Abilities in Pediatric Cancer Patients. Int J Sports Exerc Med 4:105. doi.org/10.23937/2469-5718/1510105

Copyright

© 2018 Kurpiers N, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

RESEARCH ARTICLE | OPEN ACCESS DOI: 10.23937/2469-5718/1510105

Effects of an Intense One-Week Skiing Program on Balance Abilities in Pediatric Cancer Patients

Kurpiers N1*, Vogler T2 and Flohr S1,3

1Department of Sport Science, University of Hildesheim, Germany

2Center for Sports Medicine, Munster, Germany

3Department of Biology, University of Hildesheim, Germany

Abstract

Beside a number of physical, physiological, psychological, and social impairments, cancer and its treatment can also reduce balance abilities. The aim of the present study was to assess the effect of a one-week winter camp with an intense alpine skiing program on balance ability of pediatric cancer patients in the follow-up care. Eighteen pediatric cancer patients (intervention group IG; age 10.2 ± 4.6 years) and eight healthy children for comparison (healthy group HG; age 12.3 ± 3.3 years) participated in the intervention. The results were compared to corresponding readings of a control group that consisted of 13 pediatric cancer patients (control group CG; age 9.8 ± 2.4 years) of a conventional stationary rehabilitation program. Balance ability was tested by using a Nintendo Balance Board (NBB) equipped with a "Low Cost Force Lab" software as the measurement device, with the Mean Euclidian Distance as a measure for stability within a 30sec trial on both legs and on each leg separately. The results revealed that (a) the patients of the IG exhibited significantly lower balance abilities in the pre-test in the one-leg trial for the left leg compared to the CG and the HG, (b) the IG improved their abilities significantly on both single-leg and the both-leg trial, and (c) that the IG improved their values close to that of the HG. The study showed that impaired balance abilities in pediatric cancer patients caused by the disease and its treatment can be improved within a rather short time period to the level of their healthy counterparts.