Evidence library · Balance and falls

Does exercise with hormone therapy affect balance and falls in menopause? What 6 studies found

Studies of exercise with hormone therapy in perimenopausal and postmenopausal women that measured balance and falls. 2 reported an improvement and 1 found no difference against the comparison group.

  1. In 116 postmenopausal women with a recent wrist fracture, hormone replacement therapy plus calcium over 48 weeks did not improve muscle strength, balance or reduce falls compared with calcium alone.

    No difference foundRandomised trial · 116 women · 48 weeks · 1996PostmenopausalCited 56 timesPubMed

  2. 60 perimenopausal women were randomized to aerobic training, estrogen plus progesterone therapy, or control for 18 months; the hormone therapy group showed better results in 3 of 6 balance measures.

    Mixed resultsRandomised trial · 60 women · 78 weeks · 2007PerimenopausalCited 9 timesPubMed

  3. Postmenopausal women did a 6-week lower body strength training program, and those also on hormone replacement showed improved gait balance, while strength gains were not statistically significant in either group.

    Mixed resultsControlled trial · 31 women · 6 weeks · 2005PostmenopausalCited 2 timesPubMed

  4. Three elderly women did 40 weeks of jumping, balance and strength exercise, with or without raloxifene, which improved balance, gait speed and leg strength but had limited effect on bone density.

    Reported an improvementBefore-and-after study · 3 women · 40 weeks · 2002PostmenopausalCited 4 timesPubMed

  5. A literature review reported that exercise, especially high impact activities like stepping and jumping, produced modest bone density benefits in postmenopausal women and reduced hip fracture incidence.

    Reported an improvementOther · 1999PostmenopausalCited 39 timesPubMed

  6. This protocol describes an 8-month trial testing whether high-intensity resistance and impact training with or without osteoporosis medication changes bone density in postmenopausal women with low bone mass, no results yet.

    Direction not statedOther · 160 women · 32 weeks · 2019PostmenopausalCited 8 timesPubMed

How to read this. Each line is one study, summarised in plain language from its PubMed abstract, with the authors' own sentence underneath on the study page. A count of studies is not a verdict: trials differ in size, length and quality, and a result in one group of women may not hold in another. Nothing here is medical advice.

Summaries are generated, then checked by machine against the abstract they came from; any summary that could not be matched word for word was left out. Our clinical lead is reviewing the summaries topic by topic, and this note will change when that is done. Corpus last refreshed 2026-11-03. Spotted a mistake? Tell us and we will fix the summary or remove the study.

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