The Effects of Yoga Exercise on Blood Pressure and Hand Grip Strength in Chronic Stroke Patients: A Pilot Controlled Study

Yen-Ting Lai, Hsiao-Ling Huang, City C. Hsieh, Chien-Hung Lin, Jung-Cheng Yang, Han-Hsing Tsou, Chih-Ching Lin, Szu-Yuan Li, Hsiang-Lin Chan and Wen-Sheng Liu ()
Additional contact information
Yen-Ting Lai: Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, National Taiwan University College of Medicine, Taipei 100, Taiwan
Hsiao-Ling Huang: Department of Healthcare Management, Yuanpei University of Medical Technology, No. 306, Yuanpei Street, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan
City C. Hsieh: Department of Kinesiology, Research Center for Education and Mind Sciences, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan
Chien-Hung Lin: Department of Pediatrics, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei 112, Taiwan
Jung-Cheng Yang: Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, National Taiwan University Hospital Hsin-Chu Branch, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan
Han-Hsing Tsou: Institute of Food Safety and Health Risk Assessment, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu 112, Taiwan
Chih-Ching Lin: Faculty of Medicine, School of Medicine, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan
Szu-Yuan Li: Faculty of Medicine, School of Medicine, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan
Hsiang-Lin Chan: Department of Child Psychiatry, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and University, Taoyuan 333, Taiwan
Wen-Sheng Liu: Faculty of Medicine, School of Medicine, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 2, 1-10

Abstract: Background: We investigated the beneficial effect of add-on yoga with rehabilitation on blood pressure (BP) and hand grip strength in patients with chronic stroke (more than 90 days). Methods: The study included patients 30–80 years of age who could stand independently for 1 min. Patients with psychiatric diseases or undergoing other therapies (like acupuncture) were excluded. The yoga group received training (1 h session twice weekly) with standard rehabilitation for 8 weeks. The control group received standard rehabilitation only. There were no differences in age, gender, hand grip strength, or BP between the two groups (16 subjects in each group) at baseline. Results: The systolic BP ( p = 0.01) decreased significantly, and the diastolic BP also decreased but not significantly in the yoga group ( p = 0.11). For hand grip strength, both the unaffected hand ( p = 0.00025) and the affected hand ( p = 0.027) improved significantly. The control group showed no significant change in systolic or diastolic BP, nor did the grip strength change in both hands. Gender and age also affected the results of overall rehabilitation in that women benefited more from a decrease in BP, while men and young people (lower than the mean age of 60) benefited from hand grip strength improvement. Conclusions: Combining yoga with rehabilitation in chronic stroke patients can improve hand grip strength and decrease systolic BP.

Keywords: stroke; yoga; hand grip strength; blood pressure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/2/1108/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/2/1108/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:2:p:1108-:d:1028861

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().