Abstract
Muscle stiffness, pain and discomfort in dally activities are cardinal symtoms on arthritis. To reduce these symtoms, a nonequivalent one-group pre & posttest experiment was carried out at a rural community health post area in Chonbuk province during eight weeks (from 25th of January to 20th of March, 1999). The subjects were sixteen rural old women(65-89yrs) with osteoarthritis. And to reduce the level of pain, discomfort in daily living and to increase that of life satisfaction, 30 minutes of flexibility exercise followed by $15{\sim}20\;minutes$ of local heat therapy were done three times a week. Pain scale from Arthritis Impact Measurement Scales developed by Meenan(1980) for pain, Jette's Daily Activity Discomfort Scales revised by Lee(1988) for discomfort and Life Satisfaction Scales developed by Youn(1982) for life satisfaction were used as research instruments. The data were collected by face-to-face interviews with Investigator and the experiments were done under demonstration and supervision of investigator in community health post. The data were analyzed in percentage and Wilcoxon sign rank sum test by SPSS/PC+ program. The result could be summarized as follows ; 1. The scores of experiment group who were applied hot bag followed by flexibility exercise were tended to be significant lower in the level of pain statistically(Z=4.949, P=0.0001). 2. The scores of experiment group who was applied hot bag followed by flexibility exercise were tended to be significant lower in the level of discomfort in daily living statistically(Z=2.7226, P=0.0279). 3. The scores of experiment group who was applied hot bag followed by flexibility exercise were tended to be higher in the level of life satisfaction, but there was no significant statistical difference(Z=-1.2087, P=0.2171). In conclusion, flexibility exercise with local heat therapy could be identified as an effective therapy to reduce pain and discomfort in daily living of the rural elderly with osteoarthritis. And as a community health practitioner, the investigator concluded that this exercise with local heat therapy could be developed as a health promotion program for the rural aged people.
