The effect of whole body vibration on sensorimotor deficits in people with chronic ankle instability: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective To investigate the effects of whole body vibration on chronic ankle instability-associated sensorimotor deficits in balance, strength, joint position sense and muscle activity. Data sources Electronic databases including Cochrane Library, PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, EBSCO, China National Knowledge Infrastructure and WanFang were searched from database inception up to 31 March 2022. Methods The risk of bias and methodological quality of included studies were assessed using the Cochrane tool and Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) scale respectively. Standardized mean difference (SMD) and mean differences (MD) with 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated using the RevMan 5.3 software. Meta-regression was conducted with Stata 16. Results Eight studies, with 315 subjects were eventually included in this review with an average PEDro score of 6.1/10. Significant effects of whole body vibration on balance (SMD = 0.61, 95% CI: 0.12 to 1.09, P = 0.01), and on the posterolateral direction (MD = 5.52, 95% CI: 1.02 to 10.01, P = 0.02) and medial direction (MD = 3.90, 95% CI: 0.87 to 6.94, P = 0.01) of the star excursion balance test were found. Whole body vibration significantly improved the peak torque (SMD = 0.36, 95% CI: 0.04 to 0.69, P = 0.03), joint position sense (SMD = 0.60, 95% CI: 0.10 to 1.11, P = 0.02), and muscle activity in tibialis anterior (SMD = 0.46, 95% CI: 0.04 to 0.88, P = 0.03) and gastrocnemius (SMD = 0.68, 95% CI: 0.14 to 1.23, P = 0.01). Conclusions The current evidence supports the use of whole body vibration to improve sensorimotor deficits involving balance, strength, joint position sense, and muscle activity in people with chronic ankle instability.