A Study to Assess the Effectiveness of Neurobic Exercise on Psychological Distress Among Elderly People Residing in Selected Old Age Home at Mangalore

Objective: Psychological distress significantly impacts mental wellbeing of old age people. Engaged group based supervised neurobic exercises will help the elderly to alleviate stress, depression and improve the psychological distress, cognitive function. The current pilot study aims to assesses the effect of neurobic exercises on reducing levels of psychological distress among elderly peoples. Method: A quantitative evaluative approach with pre-experimental, pre-test and post-test design was utilized. 20 elderly people were selected in old age home of Chiranthana Charitable Trust Surathkal, Mangalore, selected by using non- probability purposive sampling technique. The participants were assigned a structured neurobic exercise program for 10 days. Psychological distress was measured using standardized assessment tools (Kesler Psychological Distress Scale k-10) before and after the intervention. Statical tests defined the significance of improvements. Results: Results shows that in pre-test 60% had moderate psychological distress, 25% had mild psychological distress and 15% had severe psychological distress. In post-test 65% had normal psychological distress and 35% had mild psychological distress. The mean of posttest is 18.35±1.98 less then the mean of pretest 27±3.23. The calculated ‘t’ value (2.09) which is significant at 0.05 level of significance. Hence research hypotheses accepted. Conclusion: Study finding concludes that neurobic exercises are effective to improve the psychological distress among elderly.