Brief report
Stability of Kyphosis, Strength, and Physical Performance Gains 1 Year After a Group Exercise Program in Community-Dwelling Hyperkyphotic Older Women

Presented as a poster to the American Physical Therapy Association, February 2008, Nashville, TN.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmr.2008.07.016Get rights and content

Abstract

Pawlowsky SB, Hamel KA, Katzman WB. Stability of kyphosis, strength, and physical performance gains 1 year after a group exercise program in community-dwelling hyperkyphotic older women.

Objective

To determine if subjects maintained improvements in kyphosis, spinal extensor strength, and physical performance 1 year after a 12-week multidimensional group exercise program.

Design

Follow-up data compared with posttest outcome measures.

Setting

Outpatient academic medical center.

Participants

Nineteen of the initial 21 women, ages 65 to 80, with thoracic kyphosis of 50° or greater at the onset of the study completed follow-up testing.

Interventions

Initial intervention included multidimensional group exercise performed 2 times a week for 12 weeks, consisting of spinal extensor strengthening, flexibility exercises, and integrated spinal proprioception training. Subjects exercised independently during the following year.

Main Outcome Measures

Primary measures at the 1-year follow-up were usual and best kyphosis. Secondary measures included spinal extensor strength, modified Physical Performance Test (PPT), and the Jug Test.

Results

Subjects maintained gains at the 1-year follow-up (P>.05). Best kyphosis improved by 3° during the follow-up year (P=.022). There were no significant declines in usual kyphosis (P=.302), spinal extensor strength (P=.999), PPT (P=.087), and the Jug Test (P=.999) at follow-up.

Conclusions

Hyperkyphotic women maintained gains in usual kyphosis, spinal extensor strength, and physical performance 1 year after a group exercise program. Improvement in best kyphosis in the year after the intervention was also observed. Detraining effects may be minimized by multidimensional exercises.

Section snippets

Study Design

In our previous cohort study,9 21 women were tested before and after a 3-month group exercise intervention. Nineteen (91%) of the 21 women in the previous study agreed to retesting 1 year later. The Institutional Review Board at the University of California, San Francisco approved this study, and all participants gave informed consent.

Subjects

Subjects were initially recruited from the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center and San Francisco senior programs through mailings, flyers, and

Change in kyphosis

There were no significant differences in usual kyphosis (P>.05). Best kyphosis improved by 3° (P=.022) (table 2).

Change in physical performance

No significant differences were found in PPT or Jug Test scores (P=.087; P=.999, respectively).

Change in strength

There was no significant difference in spinal extensor strength (P=.999).

Discussion

On 1-year follow-up testing, subjects not only maintained improvements in usual kyphosis but also improved best kyphosis measurements by 3°. In the only other long-term follow-up study8 of interventions measuring kyphosis, both exercise and control subjects developed greater thoracic kyphosis at the 8-year follow-up. We were surprised that kyphosis reduced given that only 1 woman continued to perform the exercises. One explanation for this result may be the intervention helped subjects gain

Conclusions

Hyperkyphotic women maintained improvements in usual kyphosis, spinal extensor strength, and physical performance 1 year after completing a multidimensional group exercise program. Improvements in best kyphosis were also observed. Detraining effects may be minimized by multidimensional exercises.

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Supported by National Institutes of Health/National Center for Research Resources UCSF-CTSI (grant no. UL1 RR024131).

The contents of this article are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

We certify that no party having a direct interest in the results of the research supporting this article has or will confer a benefit on us or on any organization with which we are associated.

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Copyright © 2009 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.