Abstract
Background: Patients with chronic renal failure suffer physical and physiological constraints as a result of the hemodialysis process and lack of mobility. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of selected core stability exercises on the pain, fatigue and physical performance in elderly hemodialysis patients.
Methods: In this quasi-experimental study, 30 hemodialysis man patients with a mean age (62.246.51 years), history of dialysis (29.418.44 months) and dialysis three times a week were selected by available manner and randomly were divided into exercise (n=15) and control group (n=15). Pain, fatigue and physical performance of the patients was measured before and after the training program with VAS questionnaire, FSS questionnaire and two minute walk tests. Patient in the experimental group were done modified core stabilization exercises for 6 weeks, 45-minute three sessions in week. To analyze the data, variance analysis was used to measure the repeated values at the significance level (p0.05).
Results: The results indicated that the changes and interactions of the two variables of pain (F=24.61, P=0.001), Fatigue (F=41.03, P=0.001) and the physical function (F=83.07, P=0.001) were significant in the experimental group after exercise. Also in the experimental group, showed significant improvement in the pain, fatigue and physical performance (p<0/05), compared to the control group.
Conclusion: According to mobility constraints and aggravation of patients' problems in sport strategies based on lower extremity, the selected core stability exercises were an effective and suitable option for elderly hemodialysis in reducing the pain, fatigue and improving physical function, this type of exercise can be used as a non-pharmaceutical strategy by therapists and care staff.