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 purpose of this study was to identify the factors influencing quality of life after analyzing the relationship between depression, health promotion and quality of life in patients with gastrointestinal neoplasms.

The subjects of this study were 63 people who underwent treatments from 2 general hospitals in Seoul and Daejeon and had no recurrence in stages I & II of gastrointestinal neoplasms. Data was collected from March 1 to April 30, 2006. A questionnaire consisting of Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D), Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile II (HPLP II) and Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Colorectal (FACT-C) was given. The collected data was analyzed with the SPSS program which was used for descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation coefficients and hierarchical multiple regression.

The major findings of this study were as follows: 1) There was a significant relationship between depression (r=-.639, p=.000), health promotion (r=.407, p=.001) and quality of life. 2) Significant factors were depression (F=-4.091, p=.000) and health promotion (F=2.375, p=.021) that explained 46% of quality of life (F=10.022, p=.000).

Cancer patients experienced extreme depression which led to a negative effect on quality of life. Health promotion was an important variable to the quality of life and it gave the patients motivation for having a will and belief for better health.