Risk of fall for people with diabetes

Purpose: To examine the risk of fall for people with diabetes compared with healthy control subjects. Correlation between tactile sensation and postural control was examined for subjects with diabetes. Methods: Subjects with type 2 diabetes were classified into two groups: (i) diabetes without neuropathy (n = 23) and (ii) diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) (n = 9). Age-matched healthy control subjects (n = 32) were recruited. Tactile sensation, equilibrium scores (ES), strategy scores and sensory analysis scores from the Sensory Organization Test (SOT) were compared among the groups. Results: Subjects with diabetes without neuropathy demonstrated impaired postural control upon the disruption of somatosensory inputs. Subjects with DPN lost balance upon being deprived of visual inputs. A decrease in tactile sensation was associated with a decrease in the ESs in all subjects with diabetes (r = -0.35 to -0.77; p<0.05), and they tend to use more hip strategy for postural control upon being deprived of visual inputs. Conclusions: Different postural control strategies are adopted by various subgroups of subjects with diabetes. Subjects with DPN demonstrated a significant shift from ankle to hip strategies for balance tests when vision was deprived.