The Effects of a Low Intensity Excercise Program on Psychosocial Factors of Excercise and Physical Factors in Elderly Women

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: An exercise program, which was composed of motions simple and easy to follow, was developed and applied to aged women as a way to improve their health conditions. METHOD: To ascertain the effects of the exercise, which was conducted twice a week and 16 times in total for 8 weeks from September 10 to November 5, 2005 in two experimental groups (31 persons) and a control group (31 persons), this study conducted quasi-experiments of nonequivalent control group pre-post test design. Data were analyzed using SPSS/PC Win 10.0, the reliability of the measuring tools using Cronbach's alpha, the verification of equivalence for general properties and dependent variables using Chi-square test and t-test, and the verification of hypotheses using t-test and ANCOVA. RESULTS: After the exercise program, the aged women showed profitable evaluation of decisional balance, high feeling of self-efficacy as well as improved subjective awareness of health. Their diastolic blood pressure and total cholesterol were also reduced significantly after the exercise. CONCLUSION: After the conduct of the exercise program for 8 weeks, aged women showed increased profitable decisional balance, self-efficacy and subjective awareness of health. This suggests that continuous and proper exercise is effective as an intervention for health improvement for the aged as well as the prevention of and recovery from geriatric diseases.