Historically, occupational therapists have embedded exercise within occupation to enhance performance. In a recent study Lang, Nelson, and Bush (1992) compared the effects of materials-based occupation (kicking a balloon), imagery-based occupation (imagining kicking a balloon), and rote exercise on the number of exercise repetitions performed. This study extends that study by measuring the vertical distance and speed of the movement by means of Motion Analysis, Inc. digitization of videotape, in addition to exercise repetitions. The subjects included 24 women and 4 men between 76 and 98 years of age residing in residential facilities. All of the subjects experienced the three conditions but in different orders. After a statistically significant analysis of variance across the three conditions (p < 0.001), the Tukey procedure determined that the materials-based occupation condition elicited significantly more repetitions than the other two conditions. The difference between the imagery-based and occupation and rote exercise was not statistically significant. Analyses of variance indicated no significant difference between conditions for both the vertical distance variable (p = 0.074) and the speed variable (p = 0.61).
Reprinted with permission from SLACK Incorporated.

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