Self-reported Balance Confidence in Activities of Daily Living on Entry to Early Outpatient Cardiac Rehabilitation

Research Objectives: To evaluate balance confidence in older adults enrolled in a cardiac rehabilitation (CR) program.

Design: Descriptive statistics using a paired t-test analyzed age-related between-group differences.

Setting: This study was conducted in an early outpatient CR setting.

Participants: Fifty-one adults (>64 years old) with a known cardiac condition were recruited on entry to CR.

Interventions: The 16-item Activities-specific Balance Confidence (ABC) scale was used to assess balance confidence by grading various activities of daily living (ADL) on a 0-100% scale. The participants were classified into two groups based on chronological age: (Group 1) 65-74 years (69 ± 3 years; male 76%; n=25); and (Group 2) >74 years (80 ± 4 years; male 85%; n=26).

Main Outcome Measures: Balance confidence was rated as Low ( < 50%), Moderate (50-79%), or High (≥80%). Patients were categorized as At Risk of falling if scores were < 67%.

Results: The mean overall ABC score was not significantly different (p=0.0805) for Group 1 (85 ± 9%; n=25) vs. Group 2 (78 ± 17%; n=26). The number of patients who rated their balance confidence as low, moderate, or high was similar between Group 1 and 2 respectively [low: 0 (0%) vs. 3 (12%); moderate: 8 (32%) vs. 8 (31%); high: 17 (68%) vs. 15 (58%)]. One (4%) vs. six (23%) were categorized as At Risk of falling when comparing Group 1 and 2.

Conclusions: The ABC scale may help identify perceived fall risk in patients entering CR. Further screening with objective measures of balance is needed to validate this measure of self-reported balance confidence in this population.

Author(s) Disclosures: None