Análise do equilíbrio em pacientes diabéticos por meio do sistema F-Scan e da Escala de Equilíbrio de Berg

introduction: one of the most frequent complications in diabetes mellitus (dm) is diabetic neuropathy (dn), which leads to impaired skeletal muscle that can cause postural instability and risk of falls. objective: to investigate the balance of diabetic patients treated at the physical therapy department. materials and methods: we conducted a cross-sectional study with 25 diabetic subjects with a mean age of 60.88 ± 9.23 years old, at the clinical school of physiotherapy, catholic university of brasilia. we observed the static and dynamic balance of these patients through the f-scan system and the berg's balance scale (bbs), respectively, and to identify correlations between them. results: the study participants had no risk of falling by bse, there were no associations between bse and latero-lateral oscillations measured by the f-scan and significant differences between bse and anteroposterior oscillations. conclusion: although there were no balance changes in the f-scan, subjects evaluated are out of the high risk of falling, even if the decreased sensitivity has generated a tendency to score lower on the bse. this result suggests that physical therapy intervention is beneficial for the maintenance and/or improvement of body balance, thus reducing the risk of falls and increasing independence in activities of daily living (adl).