Dyer et al. (2025) — Should Whole-Body Vibration Be Used for Falls Prevention in Older People Living in the Community?

By Vibrahealth Team · Last updated 22 July 2026

Study Details

Study: Should whole body vibration be used for falls prevention in older people living in the community?

Authors: Dyer SM, Kwok WS, Dawson R, Cameron ID, Sherrington C

Journal: Systematic Reviews (BioMed Central)

Year: 2025

DOI: 10.1186/s13643-025-02946-5

Study type: Systematic review and network meta-analysis, conducted to inform an in-progress Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care guideline on falls prevention

Population: Older people living in the community (not institutionalised care-facility residents).

Plain-English Summary

This 2025 review is a critical appraisal — not a promotional one. It examines a Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care systematic review and network meta-analysis, which concluded that whole-body vibration (WBV) has moderate-certainty evidence for some benefit in falls prevention among older people living independently in the community.

The authors of this paper then add an important caveat: once the width of the confidence intervals, the possibility of adverse events, and the lack of evidence in care-facility populations are all weighed together, they recommend WBV be implemented cautiously in this population — not adopted as a default falls-prevention intervention without qualification.

What Researchers Examined

• Falls prevention interventions for community-dwelling older adults, via network meta-analysis
• Certainty of evidence (GRADE-style) for whole-body vibration specifically
• Applicability to institutionalised/care-facility populations (found to be a gap)

Key Findings

Community-dwelling older adults: whole-body vibration was found to have moderate-certainty evidence for some falls-prevention benefit.

Important caveat from this paper's authors: when the range of plausible effects (confidence interval width), the possibility of adverse events, and the absence of evidence in care-facility residents are considered together, WBV should be implemented with caution — ideally following an individually tailored assessment and under guidance from an appropriately trained health professional, rather than used as a blanket falls-prevention measure.

Care-facility residents: the evidence base does not currently support extending the community-dwelling finding to institutionalised older adults.

Methodology Notes

This is a "should we recommend this" appraisal, not a positive-results paper — the tone is deliberately measured, and the site should represent that measured tone accurately rather than simplifying it into an unqualified endorsement. The explicit caution about care-facility populations is directly relevant given Vibrahealth's own nursing-home/eldercare research library elsewhere.

The distinction between community-dwelling and institutionalised populations matters — this paper's positive finding is specific to the former, and its caution is specific to the latter.

Full Citation

Dyer SM, Kwok WS, Dawson R, Cameron ID, Sherrington C. (2025). Should whole body vibration be used for falls prevention in older people living in the community? Systematic Reviews. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-025-02946-5

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