Possibilities of Kinesiotherapy in Long - term Treat-ment of Hospitalized Schizophrenic Patients

Overview

Therapy using physical exercise is used daily in psychiatric departments.The purpose of the present study was to analyze the possibility of therapy ofschizophrenic patients by physical exercise.Two different kinesiotherapeutic programmes were applied regularly twicea week for three months. One session lasted in the beginning 20 minutes andat the end 50 minutes. There were three groups of patients.The first group performed exercises with a progressively increasing propo-rtion of the sedative components. The session was concluded by a short peri-od of relaxing positions, stimulated verbally by the therapist.The second group performed activating exercises similar to those used byEuropean Gymnastic Systems. In the first part of the lecture exercises wereoriented towards quick contraction of the muscles. The second part usessport elements. The third group - control group, was not engaged in exerci-ses.For the psychiatric evaluation of the patients we used the BPRS (Brief Psy-chiatric Rating Scale, authors Overall, J. E., Gorham, D. R.). All patients (45men, 25 women), were evaluated at the beginning and after three monthswhen the experiment ended. The evaluation was carried out by two psychiat-rists and by a psychologist, who did not known whether the patient wasaffected. In both kinesiotherapeutic programes significant improvement wasfound.

Key words:
kinesiotherapy, long-term hospitalized patients, schizophrenia,rating scale BPRS.