BACKGROUND Low back pain persisting for longer than 3 months is a common and costly condition for which many current treatments have low-moderate success rates at best. Exercise is among the more successful treatments for this condition, however, the type and dosage of exercise that elicits the best results is not clearly defined. Tai chi is a gentle form of low intensity exercise that uses con...

PURPOSE To examine the effects of a 12-week tai chi program on quality of life and exercise capacity in patients with heart failure. METHODS Thirty patients with chronic stable heart failure and left ventricular ejection fraction < or =40% (mean [+/- SD] age, 64 +/- 13 years; mean baseline ejection fraction, 23% +/- 7%; median New York Heart Association class, 2 [range, 1 to 4]) were randomly...

PURPOSE This study was done to analyze the effects of Tai Chi on fall-related risk factors through meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials published in English and Korean between 2000 and 2010. METHODS Using health related database and hand search of references and Google, 28 randomized studies were collected from doctoral dissertation and published peer reviewed articles. The Comprehensi...

OBJECTIVE To assess the effects of a 12-week Tai Chi exercise program on sleep using the sleep spectrogram, a method based on a single channel electrocardiogram (ECG)-derived estimation of cardiopulmonary coupling, previously shown to identify stable and unstable sleep states. METHODS We retrospectively analyzed 24-h continuous ECG data obtained in a clinical trial of Tai Chi exercise in pati...

STUDY OBJECTIVES To determine the efficacy of a novel behavioral intervention, Tai Chi Chih, to promote sleep quality in older adults with moderate sleep complaints. DESIGN Randomized controlled trial with 16 weeks of teaching followed by practice and assessment 9 weeks later. The main outcome measure was sleep quality, as assessed by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). SETTING Gener...

Objective. To investigate the effects of sitting Tai Chi on muscle strength, balance control, and quality of life (QOL) among survivors with spinal cord injuries (SCI). Methods. Eleven SCI survivors participated in the sitting Tai Chi training (90 minutes/session, 2 times/week for 12 weeks) and eight SCI survivors acted as controls. Dynamic sitting balance was evaluated using limits of stabilit...

This study examined the effects of Tai Chi, a low-impact mind-body movement therapy, on severity of depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms in centrally obese people with elevated depression symptoms. In total, 213 participants were randomized to a 24-week Tai Chi intervention program or a wait-list control group. Assessments were conducted at baseline and 12 and 24 weeks. Outcomes were severi...

OBJECTIVES To determine the effectiveness of a 16-week community-based tai chi program in reducing falls and improving balance in people aged 60 and older. DESIGN Randomized, controlled trial with waiting list control group. SETTING Community in Sydney, Australia. PARTICIPANTS Seven hundred two relatively healthy community-dwelling people aged 60 and older (mean age 69). INTERVENTION Si...

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of a 6-week Tai Chi exercise program on reducing blood pressure for hypertensive patients. METHOD A non-equivalent pretest-posttest experimental design was used. Participants were recruited from the Community Health Center in Busan, Korea. Twenty-eight hypertensive patients participated in this study. Among them, fourteen were in ...

PURPOSE Previous long-term observational studies found that Tai Chi practitioners had better knee-joint proprioceptive acuity versus controls in an older population. We evaluated the effects of Tai Chi for knee-joint proprioception in knee osteoarthritis (OA) in a randomized controlled trial. METHODS We randomized 40 eligible individuals (age > 55, BMI ≤ 40 kg/m2 with knee pain on most days o...