Introduction: Every day we face with various challenges and cases where we need a good balance. Balance is the ability to maintain the body's center of gravity above the support surface. Traditional Serbian folk dances consist various movements, which also contain elements of a balance–specific training. Purpose: Main purpose of diploma work was to determine the impact of folk dance practice on static and dynamic balance. Methods: With tests of static and dynamic balance before and after the programme, we checked the impact of folk dance practice on the balance. To test static balance, we used single leg stance test in different conditions, namely at hard ground and open eyes, hard ground and open eyes with added cognitive task, where we also counted correct answers, hard ground and closed eyes, soft ground and open eyes, while to test dynamic balance, we used timed up and go test and timed up and go test with added cognitive and motor task. The study involved 17 healthy young adult volunteers, who are main group members of the Serbian cultural folk ensemble Vidovdan. Results: Statistic analysis of data showed that folk dance practice did not have a statistically significant effect on results of single leg stance test under the test condition hard ground with open eyes (p=0.109 without added cognitive task and p=0.715 with added cognitive task). We also found out that there were statistically significant differences in measured values at single leg stance test under the test condition hard ground with open eyes and added cognitive task (counted correct answers), hard ground with closed eyes, soft ground with open eyes, timed up and go test and timed up and go test with added cognitive and motor task (0.001 ⡤ p ⡤ 0.016). Discussion and conclusion: We compared the measured results of single leg stance test in different conditions with the normative values, where we found out that they were lower before the start of the folk dance practice programme and comparable with each other after the programme. Taking the standard deviations into account, we can ignore deviations. In the timed up and go test and timed up and go test with added cognitive and motor task, there were differences in the measured values. Comparing the measured results with the normative values, we found out that the results before the folk dance practice programme are comparable, while the results after the programme are even slightly better that the normative values of test. We also compared the obtained results with already existing researches, where they got data that are comparable to ours. Based on the obtained data, we can conclude that the folk dance practice has a positive effect on static and dynamic balance.
|