The aging population increases rapidly in the modern society thanks to the development of medical technologies and improved quality of life. Generally, old people experience mental, physical and psychological aging process, which influence their quality of life and well-being. In particular, the quality of the old people's sleep and blood circulation causes physiologically increase in heart rate and blood pressure, sleep disorder, changes in digestive system and increase in muscle tone; psychologically changes in emotional state, depression, anger, emotional disturbance and tension; cognitively concentration difficulties and poor memory; and behaviorally decrease in capability, evasion of situations and hypersensitivity reaction. It is an important social matter and the senior welfare should be improved for the disease control, health maintenance and improvement and improvement of quality of life of the elderly.
The research was conducted to prove the influence of the foot reflex massage on blood circulation and sleep of the elderly and to identify whether it could be utilized to improve senior's blood circulation and sleep quality. 10 seniors age of 70 and more who were considered to have poor quality of sleep in Daejeon participated in the experiment.
Total 10 sessions of foot reflex massage was administered from November 7 to 28, 2011 and each session last for 30 minutes. The SPSS 18 Statistical Program was used and frequency analysis was employed for general features. The differences before and after the foot reflex massage was analyzed by Wilcoxon signed-rank test, Friedman test and T-test. As a normality test of the questionnaire, Kolmogo rov-Smirnov was used and each difference shown while administering the Friedman test was re-tested by Wilcoxon test.
1. For general features of the subjects, they are all female and for marital status, 6 of them are married and 4 of them were bereaved of their spouses. Four of them have 3 – 5 children and another four of them have more than 5 children. Six of them do not have religion. Half of them own house and another half lives in their children's house. All of them are on medication for various reasons including osteoporosis, high cholesterol, cerebral infarction, diabetes, blood pressure, neuralgia, arthritis, etc.
2. Foot temperature was measured before the massage session, after five sessions and after ten sessions. The average foot temperature was 23.38 before the massage session, 24.795 after five sessions and 25.47 after 10 sessions. P-value was 0.000, which shows significance.
The result shows that the foot temperature increased as the session continued and continuous foot reflex massage is effective in improving blood circulation of seniors.
3. As a result of the analysis on the quality of sleep, three answered "frequently" and five answered "always" before taking the massage for the sleep-related question no. 1. But, five answered "very rarely" and four answered "sometimes" after taking the massage. In addition, four answered "sometimes", three answered "often" and two answered "always" before taking the massage for the sleep-related question no. 2. But, seven answered "very rarely" after taking the massage, which proves the influence of the massage on the senior's sleep.
4. About the depth of sleep 1, three answered "sometimes" and four answered "always" before taking the massage. But, two answered "never", five answered "very rarely" and three answered "sometimes" after taking the massage.
5. Regarding the depth of sleep 2, four answered "sometimes" and four answered "frequently" before the massage session. But, nine said "very rarely" after the massage session.
6. Regarding the depth of sleep 3, four answered "frequently" and five answered "always" before the session but ten answered "very rarely" after the session.
7. Regarding the depth of sleep 4, five answered "frequently" and five answered "always" before the session, but nine said "very rarely" after the session.
8. Regarding the depth of sleep 5, nine answered "often" before the session, but six said "very rarely" and four said "sometimes" after the session.
9. Regarding the depth of sleep 6, seven said "frequently" before the session but seven said "very rarely" after the session.
10. Regarding the depth of sleep 7, 5 answered "very rarely" and four answered "frequently" before the session but three said "never" and six said "very rarely" after the session.
11. Regarding the depth of sleep 8, three answered "sometimes", three answered "frequently" and three answered "always" before the session. But, one answered "never, six answered "very rarely" and three answered "sometimes" after the session.
The result shows that the foot reflex massage influences depth of sleep or deep sleep of the elderly.
12. Regarding the continuation of sleep 1, seven answered "always" before the session, but five answered "very rarely" and four answered "sometimes" after session.
13. Regarding the continuation of sleep 2, nine answered "always" before the session but eight answered "sometimes" after the session.
14. Regarding the continuation of sleep 3, five said "frequently" before the session but nine answered "very rarely" after the session.
The result confirms that the massage has influence on the continuation of sleep of the elderly.
15. Regarding physical change while sleeping 1, three answered "frequently" and four answered "always" before the session and eight answered "very rarely" after the session.
16. Regarding physical change while sleeping 2, seven "always" before the session, but seven answered "sometimes" after the session.
17.Regarding physical change while sleeping 3, four said "sometimes" and another four answered "frequently" before the session, but eight answered "very rarely" after the session.
18. Regarding physical change while sleeping 4, four said "sometimes" and another four said "frequently" before the session and eight answered "very rarely" after the session.
This shows that the massage has influence on the physical changes of seniors while sleeping.
19.Regarding sleeping habit, three answered "sometimes", another three answered "frequently" and four answered "always" before the session.
But after the session, six answered "very rarely" and four answered "sometimes".
20. About awakening, six said "frequently" and three answered "always" before the session. But six answered "very rarely" and three answered "sometimes" after the session.
21. Regarding regularity, four said "frequently" before the session, but after the session nine answered "very rarely".
The result shows that the massage has influence on senior's sleeping habit, awakening and sleep regularity.
Such a result identifies that the foot reflex massage has an influence on the improvement senior's blood circulation and quality of sleep.
However, the subject group was not big enough to get research result about diseases.
It is expected to have more researches on senior's psychological disorders, chronic diseases in connection with the foot reflex massage.