Effects of a New Exercise Model Integrated with Mae Bot Yai Thai Dance on Balance Control in Thai Community-dwelling Older Adults: Participatory Action Research

Abstract

This study was managed as a participatory action research proposed to develop a new exercise model integrated with Mae Bot Yai Thai dance to control balance for seniors in communities, to evaluate the efficacy of the new exercise and to promote sustainable health development. The preparation of communities and the development of Mae Bot exercise were performed with participations of community members in the first stage. A cluster randomized controlled trial was used to separate participants with age sixty and older into two groups of an experimental group (E group) and a control group (C group). In both groups, three balance tests were used to measure participants’ balance control four times at the same time points. Mae Bot exercise was applied continuously in E group for twelve weeks, whereas no intervention was done in C group. The results revealed that there were significant improvement of all variables in E group both within group and compared with C group. It found that the experiment group had a significant increase of capacity of balance control both from comparison within and between groups. It indicated that Mae Bot exercise was effectively developed and could encourage sustainable health development through participatory process of community throughout the process.