Extremity superior exercises practice among Physiotherapy students - six-month follow-up study

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To assess the maintenance and effects of a six-month extremity superior exercises practice among Physiotherapy students. SETTING: This study was conduced from 1999 to 2003, with five groups of 10 students of Physiotherapy Course of Physiotherapy, Medicine School, University of São Paulo. PARTICIPANTS: Fifty students, 10 male and 40 female (mean age 20,4 ± 2,1 years) who was engaged in Therapeutic Manual Resources discipline. PROCEDURE: Program consisted in a sequence of 20 exercises that had for objective the gain of muscular force, trained using functional patterns of movements. The exercises were trained during ten sessions of one hour, using 20 minutes for discussion about studies showing occupational muscleskeletical lesions in professional physiotherapists and 40 minutes for training. Measures and behavioral evaluation: Eight isometric muscular force tests of flexion and extension of superior extremity were measured using digital dinamometry (Laffayetti Instruments) An open question and the demonstration of the trained sequence of exercises were used to evaluated the behavior. DATA ANALYSIS: Study on the effect of exercises used the average of the eight muscular force tests, considering the right superior member, obtained in T1 and compared with T2, using paired Student´s t Test. The same analysis was conduced comparing T2 and T3, resulting in a indicative of maintenance. The differences found between T1, T2 and T3 were also transformed in percentage. We also compared male and female subgroups. The answers to the open question had a quantitative analysis and collected information were grouping by theme. RESULTS: Forty eight of the original 50 subjects completed the six-month follow-up evaluation. The program produced a statistical significant improvement in muscular force (p = 0,0067) with increase of 32%. Thirty one subjects reported continued in some form of the practice of exercises and others 17 related no practice during the preceding six-month. Reasons to maintenance involved intention of prevention and better control of superior extremity movements. Reasons to abandonment included no time and others priorities. Gender was not significant predictor of exercise behavior. CONCLUSIONS: The program produced significant improvement in the muscular force. The maintenance reached superior indexes to that found in the literature. The behaviors involved with maintenance linked with the theoretical discussions proposed in the program. The didacticism used in training was efficient for exercises memorization, producing high index of correct reproducibility six months after the end of the program. The maintenance of the practice of exercises implied in additional improvement of muscular force. We believe that this kind of activity should be offer habitually for Physiotherapy students.