A study to evaluate the effectivness of leg stretching exercises and foot massage in reducing intradialytic leg muscle cramp among patients undergoing hemodialysis in a selected hospital at Kolar District

Renal failure is a major public health concern and life-threatening illness associated with high morbidity and healthcare costs across all the countries. Dialysis is one of the first innovative major breakthroughs in medical treatments for renal failure, since then; many deaths have been prevented through the use and maintenance of dialysis. Over 3.5 million people worldwide receive dialysis with hemodialysis being one of the most common forms of kidney replacement therapy accounting for 89% of all dialysis.

The study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of leg stretching exercises and foot massage on intradialytic leg muscle cramps among patients undergoing haemodialysis between experimental and control group.

A quasi-experimental study was conducted among 60 hemodialysis patients (experimental group 30 and control group 30) were recruited for the study using purposive sampling technique A modified muscle cramp questionnaire chart was used to collect the data. The reliability was established using Cronbach’s alpha with the score r = 0.744 and the tool was found to be reliable.

In the pretest the muscle cramp score in experimental group showed that majority patients (50%) had severe muscle cramps, (46.3%) had moderate muscle cramps and only (3.33%) had mild muscle cramps. In control group (56.6%) had moderate muscle cramps, (43.3%) had severe muscle cramps and none of them had mild cramps. Whereas in post test there was a reduction in muscle cramp in experimental group with majority of patients 80% had moderate muscle cramps, 13.3% had mild muscle cramps and only 6.6% had severe muscle cramps. In the control group majority patients 83.3% had severe muscle cramps and only 16.6% had moderate muscle cramp. The chi square test showed that none of the demographic variables showed significant association with pretest muscle cramp scores in the experimental group. Whereas in control group except type of family, none of the demographic variables had significant association with pretest muscle cramps scores in the control group.

The finding of the study revealed that Leg stretching exercise and foot massage was effective in reducing the intradialytic muscle cramps among hemodialysis patients.