BACKGROUND: Whole body vibration (WBV) training has gained increased attention at the beginning of 21st century as a sort of exercise. WBV instruments are popularized gradually; in the meanwhile, WBV training has showed its values especially for people who are too feeble to attend conventional exercises, among whom, the elderly accounts a lot. OBJECTIVE: To summarize the effects of WBV training on low extremity functions and chronic diseases in older individuals, and to explore the underlying mechanism, thus providing reference for the study on WBV training. METHODS: Web of Science, PubMed and CNKI databases were searched for the literatures addressing WBV training published between 1998 and 2015 with the subject word of "whole body vibration" and the keywords of "older adult, elderly, seniors, aging" in English and Chinese, respectively. The articles related to the lung diseases were excluded. The subjects were more than 60 years old, the low extremity functions included neuromuscular function, balance and walking abilities, and the chronic diseases included stroke, type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension and Parkinson disease. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: WBV training is likely to increase muscle strength, body balance and functional mobility. In terms of chronic diseases, WBV training contributes to muscle strength, relieving muscle stiffness, amyostasia, enancing improving some indexes of chronic diseases. WBV training is a safe and feasible exercising way for elderly people scheduled for improving the muscle strength, balance and walking abilities. Considering the existed evidences, WBV cannot replace the conventional therapy to treat chronic diseases in the elderly. Furthermore, a large number of high quality trials should be conducted in the future to clarify its effectiveness and application values.

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