Tai Chi Improves Physical Fitness, Perceived Health, and Blood Pressure In Elderly Patients

Health Studies

Tai Chi Improves Physical Fitness, Perceived Health, and Blood Pressure in Elderly Patients

Many community-dwelling elderly people living in Vinh city engage in Tai Chi.

However, there has been no comprehensive systematic study carried out on long-term physical function and perceived health as well as fall efficacy effects of Tai Chi in Vietnam.

Their study was to investigate and examine the effects of Tai Chi on physical fitness, perceived health, blood pressure, and fall efficacy for the elderly.

From these results, they may promote more people to engage in Tai Chi.

Abstract:

Objectives:

Evaluating the effects of Tai Chi exercise on physical fitness, blood pressure, and perceived health in community-dwelling elderly.

Design:

A randomized controlled trial. Ninety-six community-dwelling participants aged 60 to 79 years (68.9 ± 5.1 years) were recruited. SUBJECTS WERE DIVIDED RANDOMLY INTO TWO GROUPS: Tai Chi and Control groups. Participants in the Tai Chi group (aged 69.02 ± 5.16 years) attended a 60-minute Tai Chi practice session twice a week for 6 months. The session consisted of a 15-minute warm-up and a 15-minute cool-down period. The Control group (aged 68.72 ± 4.94 years) maintained routine daily activities.

Results:

After 24 weeks of the Tai Chi training program, the intervention group showed significant decrease in systole of 12 mmHg and heart rate 6.46 bpm. Body mass index and waist-hip ratio were also reduced by 1.23 and 0.04, respectively. The Senior Fitness Test and SF-36 showed significant improvement.

Conclusion:

In this randomized controlled trial study, Tai Chi is beneficial to improve systole blood pressure, heart rate, body mass index, waist-hip ratio, perceived health, and physical fitness. Assessment of the effects of Tai Chi may be focused more on chronic disease with a long-term training program in the future.

LINK:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24198581

Nguyen, Manh Hung, and Andreas Kruse. “The effects of Tai Chi training on physical fitness, perceived health, and blood pressure in elderly Vietnamese.” Open access journal of sports medicine vol. 3 7-16. 5 Mar. 2012, doi:10.2147/OAJSM.S27329

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