Abstract

Background and Aim: One of the most common problems in the stroke patients is reduction of balance and control of the posture and functional mobility disorders. Therefore, the purpose of this study was the effect of the selected physical and mental and combined exercises on balance of the stroke patients by focusing on change in the sensory inputs. Methods: Current research is of semi-experimental type, and it is applied in terms of purpose. Statistics population of research composed of the male stroke patients who are between 40-60 years old that visited the rehabilitation clinics in Shiraz city. 104 stroke patients participated in this research voluntarily. This research included 13 groups, 12 groups of which were considered as the experimental groups and one as the control group. Experimental groups were composed of 4 groups of the physical activity, 4 groups of the combined physical and 4 groups who did the subjective imagery exercise. Intervention of the experimental groups were done in 2 weeks; 5 consecutive days per week and 3 hours each day. Static balance assessments were done by the force plate device before the interventions start, immediately and 3 months after completion of intervention. To check the research hypothesizes, a compound variance analysis plan was used with 3 (types of exercises) *2 (types of eyesight) *2 (types of surfaces) *3 (tests steps), which the last factor itself had variable with the repetitive measures. In this research, the software SPSS version 21 was used for analyzing the Data and 0.05 was considered as the significant level. Findings: The results of the combined analysis of variance for the static balance test showed that the main effect of exercise, and the main effect of the test steps was significant. Also the interactive effect of eyesight on the surface and the interactive effect of exercise on the surface were significant. The interaction of the eyesight in the test steps and the interaction of the eyesight on the surface in the test steps were not significant. The results of the combined analysis of variance for the dynamic balance test in the anterior-posterior axis showed that only the main effect of the test, and the interactive effect of the exercise on the surface are significant, and other effects were not significant. Conclusion: In this research it has been shown that physical and combined exercises have more effect on the statistic balance of these people, comparing to the imagery exercise, while it is shown that subjective imagery has a positive effect on the balance. In addition, it was shown that exercise on the ribbed surface has more effect comparing to the normal surface (flat surface) in some variables.