Abstract
Objective: To investigate the effects of a physical exercise intervention program associated with noninvasive brain stimulation on the fragility and balance of frail elderly with declining mental status. Methods: Forty elderly were selected for the research and later divided into two experimental and control groups, CG (n = 20) and EG (n = 20). The frailty variable was evaluated by the Edmonton scale and the balance variable evaluated by the Tinetti test. The tests were applied at two times, before and after 60 days of intervention. The intervention consisted of physical exercises for the control and experimental groups. For GE, a non-invasive brain stimulation procedure (ECNI) was added to physical exercises, and for CG a white noise placebo stimulation procedure (PEPL). Each of these stimulation procedures lasted 20 minutes in each intervention session. Results: after 60 stimulus sessions, both the CG and the EG showed a decrease in the levels of fragility but only the GE improved in terms of balance. Conclusions: It was found that physical exercises are capable to diminish physical frailty, however, the association of ECNI to physical exercises was needed to also improve balance of the elderly under the research.