Psychomotor functions, including postural and gait stability, have varying rates of recovery in relation to length of abstinence and gender. Sullivan and colleagues found marginally improved gait and balance in abstinent alcoholic men tested after one month of sobriety and again two to 12 months later (Sullivan et al., 2000a; Sullivan et al., 2000b). However, Rosenbloom et al. (2004) found that alcoholic women tested at 15 weeks of sobriety, and then retested one and four years later, still showed persistent deficits in gait and balance, although there were improvements in psychomotor speed. Smith and Fein (2011) found that alcoholic men and women with multi-year abstinence (1.5 to 22.4 years) showed more normal gait and balance than alcoholics with short-term (6 to 15 weeks) abstinence. For the short-term abstinent alcoholics only, gender comparisons indicated that women performed worse than men on two static balance measures with eyes closed (standing heel-to-toe and standing on left leg).
