Effectiveness of Tai Chi on movement, emotion and quality of life in patients with stroke：a Meta-analysis

Lin QIN; Xia WEI; Li LIU; Huan ZHU

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND:

Tai Chi exercise can relax the affected muscle of patients, increase muscle flexibility and strength, promote normal movement patterns of stroke patients, inhibit abnormal posture and spasm patterns, improve patient motion control and balance function.

OBJECTIVE:

To systematicaly assess the effectiveness of Tai Chi on the movement, emotional disorder and quality of life in patients with stroke.

METHODS:

Al extracted data from databases of PubMed, EMbase, Web of Science, EBSCO, Google Scholar, CNKI, VIP and Wangfang were obtained, which were the randomized controled trials addressing the effects of Tai Chi on the movement, emotional disorder and quality of life in patients with stroke. The retrieval time was from database establishment to July 1st, 2015. According to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, two reviewers independently screened, extracted data and assessed the methodological quality of the included literatures. Then the meta-analysis was conducted using RevMan 5.3 software. RESULTS AND

CONCLUSION:

A total of 15 randomized controled trials involving 1016 patients were included. The results of Meta-analysis suggested that Tai Chi was superior to the conventional rehabilitation in improvement of balance function [mean difference (MD)=7.87, 95% confidence interval (CI) (4.56, 11.18),P < 0.000 01], gait speed [MD=0.27, 95%CI (0.04, 3.94),P=0.02], anxiety [standardized mean difference (SMD)=-0.47, 95%CI(-0.89,-0.04),P=0.03] and quality of life [SMD=0.65, 95%CI(0.10, 1.19),P=0.02], and there were statistical differences. But there was no statisticaly significant difference in the improvement of depression and functional walking ability. These findings indicate that Tai Chi is superior to the conventional rehabilitation in the improvement of balance function, gait speed, anxiety and quality of life. However, large-sample, high-quality randomized controled trials are needed to provide more reliable evidence for the effect of Tai Chi in depression and functional walking ability.