Thai Therapeutic Massage in Post Stroke

Monday, 7 July 2008
Jeuajan Wattakiecharoen, RN , Graduate department, Christian University, Bangkok, Thailand

Learning Objective 1: The learner will be able to know the usefulness of Thai Therapeutic Massage on patient care.

Learning Objective 2: The learner will be able to know the Thai Therapeutic Massage can use for rehabilitation in post stroke survivor.

The purposes of this research were to test the effect of Thai Therapeutic Massage in home-based rehabilitation on perceived self-efficacy, outcome expectation and physical functional status in post stroke patients. The framework of this study was developed by a deductive approach technique that derived from Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura, 1997).

The sample included 60 post stroke patients with caregivers at Banphaeo Hospital, Samutsakorn province, who were randomly assigned to an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group received Thai Therapeutic Massage in home-based rehabilitation together with routine care, while the control group received only routine care. The physical functional status was measured by Barthel Index and Chula ADL at baseline and twelve weeks after intervention. The SPSS/PC statistical program was used to analyze the data.

The findings revealed that the mean score on perceived self-efficacy for exercise of the experimental group at posttest phase was significantly higher than at the pretest phase (p-value<05).The posttest mean score on perceived self-efficacy and outcome expectation of the experimental group was significantly higher than the control group (p-value<05). This study suggests that Thai Therapeutic Massage in home-based rehabilitation could increase perceived self-efficacy in post stroke patients. This program can be implemented within the nursing practice specifically at home by using Thai Therapeutic Massage based interventions for exercise in stroke patients participating in home rehabilitation.