Effects of community-based meditative Tai Chi programme on improving quality of life, physical and mental health in chronic heart-failure participants

Abstract

Background: There is increasing evidence that coronary heart disease is linked with a number of psychosocial risk factors and biophysiological risk factors such as metabolic syndrome. This study aimed to compare Tai Chi programme heart-failure participants between the pre-intervention phase and six month after intervention time in health-related quality of life (HRQoL), including physical health, role-physical, bodily pain, general health, vitality, social functioning, role-emotional and mental health. In addition, the difference between pre-intervention and post-intervention time in psychological distress and resilience, body mass index (BMI), systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) were compared.Methods: A prospective intervention study was conducted in 2012 to evaluate the effectiveness of a community-based meditation Tai Chi intervention programme to improve heart-failure patients’ health. Measures included the Short-Form 12 Health Survey (SF-12), General Health Questionnaire (GHQ30), resilience scale, BMI, blood pressure and waist circumference. Univariate analysis of variance was used to compare the difference between pre- and post-intervention in Tai Chi participants.Results: Outcomes differed in significance and magnitude across four HRQoL measures, psychological distress and resilience between the pre- and post-intervention time in heart-failure patients who participated in the Tai Chi exercise. The participants in the post-intervention time also reduced BMI, SBP, and waist circumference.Conclusions: Regular and more than six months Tai Chi exercises had a beneficial effect to HRQoL, reducing psychological distress, promoting resilience, and reducing the BMI and blood pressure level in heart-failure patients.

Keywords:

• mind–body meditation approach
• heart failure
• Tai Chi
• quality of life
• body mass index
• blood pressure

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge Tai Chi instructors, Rod Ferguson and Dennis Watts for their kind support to provide training sessions to the participants. The authors also want to thank Samantha Hughs, Paula Nihot, and Paul Brookfield from Gold Coast City Council Active and Healthy Programme, and Sharon Leslie from Gold Coast Hospital Heart Failure Rehabilitation Program for their assistance and support to the recruitment of participants to this study.