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Physical activity intervention for hypertensive elderly women

Abstract:

Introduction: Hypertension is excessively high blood pressure against arterial walls which may be regulated with systematic physical activity. Objectives: Design and implement a physical recreation program adapted to the context of the Ecuadorian highlands aimed at balancing blood pressure in elderly women. Methods: A study was conducted with 40 elderly women aged 6072 years with discreet mild hypertension selected by intentional sampling. Several variables were evaluated (eating habits, drug treatment, smoking, alcohol consumption, obesity, knowledge about the relationship between physical activity and hypertension, involvement in physical activity, interest in engaging in physical activity, hypertension range at rest) before and after implementation of the physical recreation proposal during six months. The proposal was designed on the basis of a likes and preferences survey previously conducted. Comparison of results was based on Proportion calculation for related samples (r? 0.05) and Wilcoxon signedrank test (p? 0.05). Results: The nine variables evaluated exhibited better percent values in the final evaluation. In most cases there were significant differences between the initial and the final assessment. Overall initial blood pressure mean values were (Formula Presented) 149 mmHg systolic and (Formula Presented)95 mmHg diastolic (mild discreet), whereas overall final mean values were (Formula Presented)134 mmHg systolic and (Formula Presented)87 mmHg diastolic, for a general classification of Normal High (NH). Conclusions: The strategy implemented improved blood pressure values in the study sample. This was significantly evident on comparing the initial and final diagnostics (p= 0.000) using the Wilcoxon signedrank test. It is thus inferred that physical recreation activities adapted to the Ecuadorian context contribute to blood pressure balance in hypertensive elderly women.