earticle

영어

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a home-based exercise program on balance and psychosocial well-being such as balance confidence, depression, and quality of life for the elderly. Forty-nine people over the age of 65 were recruited from a welfare center in the community and were randomly assigned to either an experimental group (EG) or control group (CG). Daily routine activities such as walking around the house and simple actions to maintain their own lives were not limited. Additionally, subjects of the EG have performed a home-based exercise program for 20 minutes, five times per week for 4 weeks (a total of 20 sessions), which consisted of four exercise programs: Pressing the waist floor, bending their knees, pushing their knee with their opposite arms, and bridge exercise that could perform on own itself. Outcome measures included Berg balance scale (BBS), functional reach arm test, one leg stance test (OLST), timed up and go test, Korean version of activities-specific balance confidence (K-ABC), Korean version of geriatric depression scale, and 36-item short-form health survey (SF-36) Measurements were performed before and after the intervention. In within-group comparison, subjects of the CG did not show significant improvement in all parameters; however, there were found for the BBS, OLST, and K-ABC scores in subjects of the EG (p<.01). Furthermore, in the EG, a total score of the SF-36 and scores of sub-domains (physical function [PF], mental health, vitality, bodily pain [BP], and general health [GH]) of the SF-36 showed significant improvement after the intervention (p<.05). In between-group comparison, significant differences were found for OLST, SF-36, PF, BP, and GH scores between two groups (p<.05). These findings indicate that a home-based exercise program might be advantageous to improve the balance and psychosocial well-being of the elderly. Further studies with a wider range of subjects and a longer experimental spans are required to support the results of this study.