A study to evaluate the postural sway in Type 2 diabetes mellitus patients with or without polyneuropathy: A cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND- Diabetes can cause long-term complications such as retinopathy, which can result in vision loss, nephropathy, which can cause renal failure, peripheral neuropathy, which increases the risk of foot ulcers. The degree of postural instability is anticipated to be higher in diabetic patients with a lengthy history of severe peripheral neuropathy than in non-diabetic people. Patients with polyneuropathy who have type 2 diabetes were unable to maintain an upright posture. There will be the early stage of postural balance impairment. PURPOSE- To evaluate the postural sway in Type 2 diabetes mellitus patients with or without polyneuropathy. METHODOLOGY- The total study duration was one and half year. Two groups were taken including Group A with Type 2 diabetes mellitus patients with polyneuropathy and Group B with Type 2 diabetes mellitus patients without polyneuropathy. Patients between the age group of 45-70 years were selected on the basis of inclusion criteria. A minimum of 40 patients were recruited for the study. Dependent variable, postural sway in anteroposterior direction was evaluated on the Orthoking Pressure Plate SDP 610. RESULTS- Data analysis was performed by SPSS Software version 18 and the variable was compared and assessed using unpaired t-test and Karl Pearson's Coefficient of Correlation. The results of the study showed that there was significant difference between the postural sway (in AP direction) of Group A (DM type 2 with polyneuropathy) and Group B (DM type 2 without polyneuropathy), as the P values of Group A and Group B were 0.0307 (eyes open) and 0.0445 (eyes closed). In both groups (Group A and Group B), the correlation between postural sway (AP direction) between the eyes open and eyes closed conditions was also significant at level 0.05 (two-tailed). CONCLUSION: From the results of present study it is depicted that there is postural sway with reference to increase in deviation in Anteroposterior direction. Thus it can be concluded that DM Type 2 with polyneuropathy have higher postural sway as compared to the DM type 2 patients without polyneuropathy. Therefore, the results from the present study can be taken into consideration while assessing and treatment planning of patients with DM Type 2 with polyneuropathy.