Effectiveness of Acupressure on Elderly Patients with Constipation

• Main Authors: Sheng Fen Lin, 林聖芬
• Other Authors: W. R. Tang
• Format: Others
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/74818999463316511184

碩士 === 長庚大學 === 護理學系 === 99 === The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of acupressure on elderly patients with chronic constipation. A single-blind was used. Fifty-nine inpatients with chronic constipation from a geriatric ward at a northern medical center were included. Patients were stratified randomized into two groups, experimental group (n = 29) and control group (n = 30). The experimental group received acupressure in addition to standard care, while the control group received standard care only. Acupressure included one researcher performing acupressure on each of the 4 acupoints 8 minutes and abdominal massage 5 minutes, twice a day, for 7 days. Outcome measurements assessed just prior to the acupressure at day 1 as baseline, the incident symptom of constipation assessed at day 3 and day 7 of the study and the Bristol Stool Form Scale assessed daily. In addition, abdominal distension rate per day and the number of bowel movements per day measured daily before and after receiving acupressure for experimental group only. In the uni-variate analyses, there were significant improvements (p<0.05) in the incident symptom of constipation score in the experimental group compared to the control group at day 7 of the study when tested by independent t test. Twenty patient-times (68.97%) of experimental group appeared ideal consistency and no one appeared hard to pass, while four patient-times (6.8%) of control group appeared hard to pass in the Bristol Stool Form Scale. All of the frequency of bowel movements per day increased (p<0.05) when tested by Wilcoxon Signed-Ranks test. In the multivariate analyses in the experimental group only, the number of people for abdominal distension per day at day 7 of the study decreased 0.233-fold (95% confidence interval, CI=0.15-0.37, p < .001) compared to that of day 1 of the study when tested by Logistic regression analysis in GEE; the frequency of bowel movements per day increased along with time progress compared to that of the first time of day 1 of the study when tested by Poisson regression analysis in GEE adjusted for the effect of abdominal distension rate. Acupressure could be useful in reducing the incident symptom of constipation on elderly patient with chronic constipation and help patients to defecate smoothly.