AbstractsBusiness Management & Administration

EXERCISE AS A BOOST FOR THE HEALTH PROMOTION OF THE ELDERLY : Questionnaire survey in three elderly homes in China, Finland and Kenya

by Robert Kipkeu




Institution: Kemi-Tornion ammattikorkeakoulu; Lapin ammattikorkeakoulu
Department:
Year: 2013
Record ID: 1133450
Full text PDF: http://www.theseus.fi/handle/10024/59324


Abstract

Old age is inevitable for everyone in the society. The world elderly population has increased tremendously and special measures are taken to secure their well being. One of the vital steps towards securing elderly health is through participation in exercise. The purpose of this quantitative research was to explore ways in which exercise functions as a boost to elderly health in multicultural environment. The aims are to get an overall view of elderly awareness and experiences about exercise and to find out the role played by nurses in provision of exercise to elderly. Research method of the thesis was quantitative, whereby questionnaires as data collection method were distributed to the elderly in three countries: China (Ri Yuexing nursing home), Kenya (Eldoret and Cherangani nursing home), and Finland (Purola elderly home). Manual way, Microsoft Excel and SPSS programme were used as a descriptive statistics technique to analyze the data and table and graphs were made to reflect the results. The research questions were: What are the elderly experiences about exercise? How do elderly implement exercise? How do the elderly experience the effects of exercise on their health? What is nurses’ role in promotion of exercise among elderly? The results of this research showed most elderly are aware of the importance of exercises. Age is not a limiting factor to exercise since there are different forms of exercises as adopted by the elderly. It also showed the active role played by nurses and families in promoting exercises to the elderly. Through exercise, the quality of elderly life is improved since exercise helps to keep them strong, active and healthy.