PONE-D-23-09135Effects of tai chi on postural balance and quality of life among the elderly with gait disorders: a systematic reviewPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. XU,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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ACADEMIC EDITOR:Dear Corresponding Author Reviewer 1 and Reviewer 2 evaluated you paper and it was appreciated, at the same time minor revisions are requested. Please, read carefully all the comments and prepare a proper answer for each one and submit again the paper. 

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Luca Russo, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: For all authors,

thanks for sending the paper to this journal, to improve the quality of the paper I will be giving some suggestions:

The English writing of the article in general needs to be improved. for example some words like elderly and older adults have been quoted differently, I suggest you include just older adults and delete elderly. gait and balance problems can be gait and balance impairments. and line 50 and 60 and other words

line 21-24 Some confusion, difficult to understand, you need to add population, and then factors and measures

line 30: reduce falls . Did you have the numer of fallers and no fallers, so you cannot say reduce or prevent falls

you used measues to decrease the risk of falls

line 45-46: exercise is non drug ( no understand) and all patients (which patients)

Outcomes: Balance, mobility, gait ability, strength, fall rate, quality of life (QoL)

You need to explain better the outcomes, which measurements each one were used

as you mentioned before postural balance is different than balance

fall rate this is the number of falls or fallers and no fallers and you mentioned fear of falling that is different

The results: in relation to TUG you have inclued in all measurements

TUG is funcional mobility- general mobility

you included in postural balance, gait, mobility

dont think this is correct

line 219: Two studies evaluated strength in the elderly's fear of falls/history of falls and no exercise

I mentioned before fear isnt falls

what tipe of strength has been evaluated....

Discussion

236 needs the objectives before

249 explain WHY did not improve

251-243 defined measures, explain

as I mentioned before

264 Why no improvment, explain

278 explain

300 why strenght

309 e 310 is not clear about rate of falls, explain and add the numbers

314-321 end the paragraph say about the relation of the title of the paper

340 you did not analyze (is meta-analyses) and rate of falls

350 say numbers frequency, weeks is better to improve

Reviewer #2: Some minor revisions below:

- Line 13-31, abstract: Authors should report in full the content of the acronym when it first appears in the abstract.

- Lines 27-31, the conclusions of the abstract should be more consistent with the conclusions of the work and above all report the limitations observed in all the works including the comparability of the studies, including duration, frequency of intervention, and type of movements, style.

- Line 85, "Tai Chi as an intervention method" the authors should better clarify what types of interventions are considered with the term Tai Chi and what styles are included.

- Line 103, authors should consider to include a PRISMA Statement Checklist or similar as supplementary material

(http://www.prisma-statement.org/documents/PRISMA_2020_checklist.pdf).

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Dr Larissa Donatoni da Silva

Reviewer #2: No

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Effects of tai chi on postural balance and quality of life among the elderly with gait disorders: a systematic review

PONE-D-23-09135R1

Dear Dr. XU,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Luca Russo, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Congratulations for the paper it was really appreciated by the reviewers.

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: N/A

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: I would like to Thanks all authors to Review and introduced the comments on the manuscript!!

It is a great manuscript!

Reviewer #2: Comments have been addressed and this manuscript appears improved and therefore suitable for acceptance.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Larissa Donatoni da Silva

Reviewer #2: No

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