Medical Qigong for Mobility and Balance Self-Confidence

Dartmouth Health

Status: Completed

Conditions: Falls, Balance Self-confidence

Treatments: Behavioral: Medical QiGong training

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04430751

250-37

Details and patient eligibility

About

The population is aging and increasingly at risk for falls and fractures with substantial consequences to wellbeing, health and costs. Training interventions such as Tai Chi have been demonstrated to help reduce these risks. Tai chi is a subset of both martial and medical qi gong.

This is a prospective intervention study with wait time control that will examine the ability of a manualized medical qi gong training protocol improve balance, gait and health self-confidence.

The intervention is a 12 week manualized medical qi gong training program where students are taught a progressive series of 10 qi gong forms that are designed to build upon each other and restore balance and function. These forms involve both physical movement and visualization.

The Community Balance and Mobility scale (a performance based measure) and Activities-specified Balance Confidence scale (a survey)will be the prime outcome instruments

Enrollment: 95 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 50+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Adults 50 years of age or older who presented at the two study locations (Massachusetts, Arizona) were considered eligible for participation

Exclusion criteria

• Unable to participate in informed consent

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Triple Blind

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95 participants in 2 patient groups

Immediate start

Active Comparator group

Treatment:

Behavioral: Medical QiGong training

wait time control

Active Comparator group

Treatment:

Behavioral: Medical QiGong training