Publication:

Effectiveness of muscle stretching exercise on restless leg syndrome among patients undergoing haemodialysis

Background Restless leg syndrome is a common side effect of dialysis that causes people to keep moving their legs as a result of the leg nerves and muscles creating a crawly or prickly sensation. RLS often leads to severe sleep onset insomnia and seriously impaired quality of life. The study was aimed to find out the effectiveness of muscle stretching exercise in Restlessness leg syndrome among haemodialysis patients.

Method A quantitative research approach with times series research design was used for the study to assess the effectiveness of muscle stretching exercise on restlessness leg syndrome. The study was conducted in dialysis unit of selected multi-speciality hospital. Simple random sampling technique was used to assign the samples in experimental and control group in the study. Data was collected from 86 chronic kidney disease patients undergoing haemodialysis. The restless legs syndrome rating scale was used measure the magnitude of the RLS.

Results The result of the study shows that in baseline the RLS mean score was 0.59 and after a week of muscle stretching exercise program implementation the mean score was reduced to 0.34. Intervention was found to be effective in reduction of RLS symptoms of haemodialysis patients significantly (p≤ 0.05), whereas there was no significant change found in the control group.

Conclusion The study showed that intervention was effective in Reduction of RLS symptoms whereas continuous reinforcement was needed to lessen the RLS symptoms in haemodialysis patients.