Abstract

PURPOSE
This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of foot reflexologic massage on blood pressure and sleep of elderly with essential hypertension. METHOD: This study was employed non-equivalent control group pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design. The subjects were divided into two groups: 20 elders for experimental group and 18 elders for control group. For experimental group, foot reflexologic massage was done three times at three-day intervals. The data analyzed by SPSS version 10.0 program. RESULT: The systolic and diastolic blood pressure after foot reflexologic massage did not show a significant difference between the two groups. In experimental group, there was a significant difference in the systolic(t=3.559, p=.001) and the diastolic blood pressure(t= 3.048, p=.004) that measured after foot reflexologic massage. There was a significant difference(t=2.665, p=.011) in sleep between the two groups. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that foot reflexologic massage was partially effective to reduce the degree of blood pressure and improve sleep of the elderly with essential hypertension. A follow up research is needed to compare and confirm its long-term effects.

• Keywords: Foot reflexologic massage; Essential hypertension; Elderly; Sleep