Tai Chi exercise, an ancient Chinese martial art, has drawn more and more attention for its health benefits. The purpose of the study was to identify the effects of a Sun-style Tai Chi exercise on arthritic symptoms (joint pain and stiffness), motivation for performing health behaviors, and the performance of health behaviors among older women with osteoarthritis.

Total of 72 women with the mean age of 63 years old were recruited from outpatients clinic or public health centers according to the inclusion criteria and assigned randomly to either the Tai Chi exercise group or the control. A Sun-style Tai Chi exercise has been provided three times a week for the first two weeks, and then once a week for another 10 weeks. In 12 weeks of study period, 22 subjects in the Tai Chi exercise group and 21 subjects in the control group completed the posttest measure with the dropout rate of 41%. Outcome variables included arthritic symptoms measured by K-WOMAC, motivation for health behavior, and health behaviors.

At the completion of the 12 week Tai Chi exercise, the Tai Chi group perceived significantly less joint pain (t=-2.19, p=0.03) and stiffness (t=-2.24, p=0.03), perceived more health benefits (t=2.67, p=0.01), and performed better health behaviors (t=2.35, p=0.02), specifically for diet behavior (t=2.06, p=0.04) and stress management (t=2.97, p=0.005).

A Sun-style Tai Chi exercise was found as beneficial for women with osteoarthritis to reduce their perceived arthritic symptoms, improve their perception of health benefits to perform better health behaviors.

The aim of this study was to explore how individual factors, physiologic factors, symptoms, environmental factors, functional status and health perception predict the quality of life (QOL) for older adults with osteoarthritis and to provide guidelines for interventions and strategies to improve QOL in these patients. The conceptual model was based on the Wilson and Cleary's Model.

Data were analyzed using SPSS WIN 20.0 and AMOS 19.0 program.

The proposed model was a good fit for the data based on the model fit indices. Based on the constructed model, individual factors, social support, functional status and health perception were founded to have direct effects on QOL. Symptom had a indirect effect on QOL. Social support had a significant effect on QOL, and this model explained 63.6% of the variance in QOL.

The results of this study suggest that nursing strategies to increase QOL in this population should contain social support to promote QOL and manage functional limitations and health perception.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate a self-care program for elders with osteoarthritis managed by primary health care workers, Community Health Practitioners (CHPs), in rural Korea.

The self-care program, consisting of 7 areas, was evaluated with a randomized experimental study for patients over age 60 with osteoarthritis in which 150 participants in the experimental group and 140 in the control group were compared. The self-care program was implemented for six weeks, 2 hours per week, at community health posts by CHPs. Data were collected using an interview questionnaire given by the CHPs and laboratory tests before and after the intervention for both groups. Propensity score matching analysis was done to test effectiveness after controlling for confounding variables.

The intervention group showed a significant decrease in the number of painful joints (p<.001) and a significant increase in self-care ability (p<.05) compared to the control group.

Study results indicate that training and utilizing primary health care workers in rural areas is valuable in increasing the generalization and continuity of intervention programs. As arthritis should be managed life-long, CHP directed self-care programs are useful interventions for rural elders with arthritis to learn self-care management.

This study was to determine whether the Sun-style 24 forms of Tai Chi exercise improve pain, stiffness, disability, knee joint motion, mobility, balance or falling.

Forty-six community-dwelling elderly subjects (mean age, 75.46±6.28) voluntarily participated in an intervention group of either 24 forms of Sun-style Tai Chi for 60 min, 2 times per week for 12 weeks or a control group. A on-equivalent pretest-posttest design was used. Independent t-test and ANCOVA were used to examine group differences by using SPSS12.0.

The experimental group had significantly less pain (F=7.60, p=.008) and stiffness (t=-3.19, p=.003) than the control group. Also there were significant improvements in knee joint motion on the right knee (t=2.44, p=.019), left knee (t=2.30, p=.026), rising time (F=8.03, p=.07), balance on the left single leg test (t=2.20, p=.033), and fear of falling (t=-2.33, p=.024) in the Tai Chi exercise group. No significant group differences were found in disability and falls efficacy.

The Sun-style 24 forms Tai Chi exercise is effective in decreasing pain, stiffness, fear of falling and it improves balance, rising time, and knee joint motion. We suggest a continuing long term intervention to decrease disability and increase efficacy concerning falls.

This study was to compare the effects among Tai-Chi exercise, aquatic Exercise, and a self-help program for knee osteoarthritis patients on symptoms of arthritis, muscle strength, balance, and difficulty of performing activities.

There were 50 final subjects50. A non-equivalent pretest-posttest design was used. The collected data was analyzed using SPSS for Window. One-way ANOVA and Scheffe's multiple comparison test were used 8weeks after each program.

There were significant differences in joint pain(p=.000), stiffness (p=.001), knee extensor peak torque(p=.006), knee flexor(p=.002), and difficult of performing activity (p=.000), but there was no significant difference in balance(p=.648). The Tai-Chi group was significantly different from the self-help group for knee extensor peak torque, knee flexor and stiffness on Scheffe's multiple comparison tests. In addition, the Tai Chi group or aquatic group were significantly different from the self-help group for difficulty of performing activities(p<0.05).

There are significant differences in the effects of the nursing intervention among the three groups. The Tai Chi group and aquatic group were significantly different from the self-help group. However, it seems that Tai-chi exercise may be more suitable than aquatic exercise in osteoarthritis exercise programs. Further studies with a longitudinal study are necessary to confirm the longer exercise period.