Authors (including presenting author) :
YU KMK (1)
Affiliation :
(1)Physiotherapy Department, Kwai Chung Hospital
Introduction :
Medications is a conventional intervention for Schizophrenic patients, which helps to control the positive symptoms. However, it showed limited effect in managing patients’ negative symptoms, including inactivity, self-neglect and social withdrawal, which lead to impaired physical health and poorer compliance to rehabilitation. Although physical fitness exercise has been proven to be beneficial on promoting mood and physical fitness in people with Schizophrenia, few investigations studied exercise for
improving negative symptoms. As the course of illness in each individual is different, a tailored made rehabilitation program based on exercise should be designed to each patient.
Objectives :
This retrospective cohort review aims at studying the effectiveness of a structured tailored made rehabilitation program in promoting physical and psychological well-being of adult patients with Schizophrenia.
Methodology :
A program review design was adapted with data retrieval from March 2015 to March 2019. Adult outpatients from Kwai Chung Hospital with diagnosis of Schizophrenia or Schizoaffective disorder were screened for eligibility to be recruited for further data analysis. Those patients completed the
physiotherapy rehabilitation program and finished the pre and post assessments were included in this review. The rehabilitation program consisted 12 biweekly one-hour sessions, for 6 weeks. It focused on
exercise training, exercise habit coaching and weight management education, with different proportions of pain management and body awareness therapy which depended on individual’s need. Physical outcomes consisted of body composition, flexibility and dominant hand grip strength. Psychological outcomes included Rosenberg self-esteem scale (RSES), General Happiness Scale (GHS) and General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES).
Result & Outcome :
Overall 34 participants were eligible for data analysis. The mean age was 43.32 ± 12.00. Patients demonstrated statistically significant increase in physical fitness aspects (p< 0.05) except body composition. Flexibility (cm) increased from 13.15 ± 12.29 to 18.78 ± 11.20; dominant hand grip strength (kg) increased from 21.63 ± 6.72 to 23.98 ± 7.49. Moreover, there were statistically significant increase in all psychological domains (p< 0.05). Rosenberg self-esteem scale improved from 15.65 ± 4.20 to 17.91 ± 5.32; General Happiness Scale increased from 4.14 ± 1.25 to 4.62 ± 1.10; while General Self-Efficacy Scale increased from 20.09 ± 5.80 to 23.76 ± 7.25. The results suggested that a structured rehabilitation program could be an effective non-pharmacological treatment to promote physical fitness and psychological well-being of adult patients with Schizophrenia.
