Effect of Aerobic Exercise versus Jacobson’s Progressive Muscular Relaxation Technique in Patients with Hypertension

Introduction: In the last few decades, the prevalence of hypertension has been drastically increased in India. Hypertension is defined by the presence of a chronic elevation of systemic arterial pressure above a certain threshold value. Proper management of hypertension may require both pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions. Aerobic exercise and Jacobson’s Progressive Muscular relaxation (JPMR) technique both are Non-pharmacological interventions for reducing blood pressure. Method: Interventional study was done by Random sampling method and conducted on 20 hypertensive subjects. Subject willing to participate, age group 20-55 year both male and female and blood pressure above 140/90 mmHg were included. Subjects not able to understand, psychologically unstable, systemic illness and subject who were not regularly taking medications were excluded. 20 hypertensive subjects, randomly divided into 2 groups. The first group was asked to do 5 sessions of Aerobic exercise for 30-45 minutes per week for 4 week and the second group was asked to do 5 sessions of JPMR for 30 minutes per week for 4 week. In both the groups pre and post systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and heart rate (HR) were measured in sitting position. Subjective results were established. Results: Statistical analysis was done using SPSS16. There was statistically significant difference between pre and post value of SBP (p<0.05), DBP (p<0.05) in both groups, but the aerobic exercise showed more significant results as compared to the JPMR. Conclusion: Hence it can be concluded that Aerobic Exercise is more effective in hypertensive than Jacobson’s Progressive Muscular relaxation technique.