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Rehabilitation Practice and Science

Translated Title

太極拳對中老年人心肺功能之促進及維持效果

Abstract

A series of studies was designed to investigate the effect of Tai Chi Chuan for developing and maintaining cardiorespiratory function in elderly individuals.In the cross-sectional studies, cardiorespiratory function of 90 middle-aged (range 50-64 yrs) and 76 elderly (range 65-80 yrs) subjects were tested by cycle ergometry. The TCC group practiced TCC with a mean duration of 9.1±4.3 yrs. The control group consisted of 84 sedentary subjects. The VO2max of the TCC group was 15.6-26.8% higher than that of the control group. The result implied that TCC was beneficial for the cardiorespiratory function in the middle-aged and elderly individuals. In the longitudinal studies, we demonstrated that long-term TCC practice might delay the decline of cardiorespiratory function. Furthermore, in a study of novice TCC practitioners, the VO2max increased 16.1% in men and increased 21.3% in women after a year of training. The results indicated that a TCC program was effective for improving cardiorespiratory function. A clinical study was also designed to evaluate the effect of TCC on low-risk coronary artery bypass surgery patients after a postoperative rehabilitation program. The TCC group increased 10.3% in VO2max after one year of training. The result demonstrated that a TCC program could enhance the cardiorespiratory function of low-risk cardiac patients. The VO2 during TCC practice was 55% of the VO2max, and the heart rate during practice was 61% of the HRmax. It seems that TCC is an exercise with moderate intensity and is aerobic in nature. For the elderly individuals as well as the low-risk cardiac patients, TCC may be prescribed as an alternative for conditioning if there are no medical contraindications.

Language

Traditional Chinese

First Page

63

Last Page

69

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