Walking Exercise and Blood Pressure among Elderly With Hypertension In Nursing Homes

Abstract

Background: The raised prevalence of people living with hypertension was becoming a global health problem as it’s reported each year.Furthermore, the raised of blood pressure can be caused by several factors, such as an unhealthy lifestyle and lack of physical exercise that consequently lead to chronic kidney disease, coronary heart disease, stroke, and even death. One of complementary therapy that can control blood pressure was walking exercise. Objectives: This study aimed to determine the effect of walking exercis e on blood pressure among the elderly with hypertension in a nursing home. Method: The research applied Pre-experimental type of pre-test and post-test without a control group. There were totally 32 elderly selected by purposive sampling based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. The tools used were sphygmomanometer aneroid type and stethoscope. Walking exercise was given at 3 times a week with 30 minutes per session. Data analysis was used paired t-test. Results: The results show that there was a significant effect of walking exercise to reduce blood pressure among the elderly with hypertension with a p value of 0,000 (p <0.05). Mean systolic 10,938, SD 4,655 and mean diastolic 6,563, SD 4,826. Conclusion: There are differences in blood pressure before and after walking exercise. This intervention can be used as a complementary therapy. Walking exercise was easier and simpler sincethisphysical activitiescan be performedindependently and consequently should be integrated in non -communicable disease program in primary health care services.