Ankylosing spondylitis: the physical exercise as a form of rehabilitation and promoter of quality of life

Abstract

Introduction: the main goal of this study was to verify if the practice of physical exercise is related to the quality of life in patients with Ankylosing Spondylitis. Material and methods: it was made a quantitative study, following a correlative and descriptive approach. As a means of data collection it was used a questionnaire that it was organized in two parts, the first one to get information about the social-demographic level, whether if it makes or not rehabilitation and about the practise of exercise and the second one related to the quality of life questionnaire, SF36. For the data treatment, it was used the statistical program SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences), version 12.0. The statistical techniques used were the descriptive and deductive ones. Results: it involved 19 patients with Ankylosing Spondylitis, 10 females and 9 males, whose average age was 46,58 years old. The first symptoms occurred, in average, at the age of 27,53; the lapse of time between the disease appearance and the diagnosis was of 6,88 years and the patients presented, in average, 10,83 years of evolution of disease. Concerning physical exercise, the study proved that 10 patients practised it regularly, while the other 9 didn't practice any type of physical exercise. Conclusions: It was possible to conclude that the age, age of diagnosis and the lapse of time between the disease appearance and the diagnosis influence positive and negative in quality of life and that there are different perceptions regarding the relation between health and physical exercise.