Nurs Health Sci. 2002 Aug; 4(3 Suppl): A8.

Study of the patterns of alternative therapy by the elderly.

Shin KR, Jho MY, Lee GS, Park SY, Shin SJ.

The purpose of this study was to examine the pattern of alternative therapy by the elderly. The data were collected from 15-25 May 2001 in Seoul, Korea. The instrument, developed by Shin (2000), was used to examine the patterns of alternative therapy. The collected data were analyzed by using the sas program. The findings revealed: 1. Over 66% (66.84%) of the elderly used alternative therapy. 2. In regard to the mind-body technique, exercise (19.85%) and praying or Bul-Gong (16.79%) were most favored. Sa-Gol (42.75%), ginseng (24.43%), and nok-yong (24.43%) were the most favorable of the dietary therapies. Of the manual healing methods, ordinary acupuncture (48.83%), physical therapy (24.43%), moxibustion (20.61%) and hand acupuncture (12.98%) were most favored. 3. The greatest satisfaction of the alternative therapies was ordinary acupuncture (14.50%). 4. The rate of using alternative therapy was significantly different in regard to gender (P = 0.0493). It was concluded that alternative therapies may be effective independent nursing interventions to use with the elderly.