[Effects of muscle strengthening exercises using a Thera Band on lower limb function of hemiplegic stroke patients].

PURPOSE: This study was to verify the effect of muscle strengthening exercises using a Thera-Band on the lower limbs. METHODS: The design utilized for this study was a nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design. A control group (16) and experimental group (16) were selected from stroke patients of K Oriental Medicine Hospital who were hospitalized for 5 months from December 2005 through April 2006. While only acupuncture therapy and physical therapy were used on the control group, acupuncture, physical therapy and additional muscle strengthening exercises using a red thera band were used on the experimental group. Muscle strengthening was performed 20 minutes per session, more than one session a day for 4 weeks. Hypotheses for this study were verified using Two-way repeated ANOVA and ANCOVA using a pre test score as a covariate. RESULTS: The experimental group with thera band muscle strengthening exercises showed a decrease in asymmetry weight loading percentage(F=14.704, P= .010), range of knee (Z=-3.15, P= .001) & deep tendon reflex score(Z=-2.52, P= .012) and moving performance(F=12.328, P= .001)compared to the control group. CONCLUSION: It is confirmed that muscle strengthening exercises using a Thera-Band can be used as an effective nursing intervention to improve the function of the lower limb of hemiplegic stroke patients.

[Development of a scale to measure the effectiveness of oriental nursing education].

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to design and evaluate a scale for measuring reliability and validity in the field of oriental nursing education. METHOD: A questionnaire was administered to 495 university nursing students using a convenience sampling method. The period of time for collecting data was from September 2003 to January 2004. RESULT: The derived outcome tool consisted of 6 factors and 22 inquires on the basis of a conceptual frame of three domains (knowledge, attitude, and skill), As a result of the item analysis, 22 items were selected and the internal consistency alpha coefficient was .767. The value of Cronbach' Alpha of knowledge (factor 1) was .885, attitude (factor 2) was .756, and skill (factor 3) was .610. The three factors accounted for 65.110% of the variance in the total scale. Addressing the explanatory variance of each domain Cognitive domain was 22.477%, affective domain was 20.543%, and psychomotor domain was 17.090%. CONCLUSION: Further studies need to be done to verify educational evaluation and apply our outcomes to oriental nursing education.