The effectiveness pre-operative exercise of muscle strength for early ambulation on lower limb fracture with measurement tool – The Modified Iowa Level of Assistance Scale (MILAS) – in hospital inpatients

Abstract

To evaluate the effectiveness of pre-operative exercise of muscle strength before surgery, maintains muscle strength and prepare early postoperative ambulation lower limb fracture. Design research was a quasi-experiment with control and post-test only (unpaired t-test) with 28 respondents (14 respondents intervention group and 14 respondents control group). The intervention group was given muscle strength exercise before surgery, for ±1 week. Every day patients do strength exercise 3 times a day, for ±5-10min. The post-operative assessment was conducted in both groups with Modified Level of Assistance Scale (MILAS), to find out the difference in the ability to do early ambulation. The results of the independent t-test were significant differences of ambulation ability of the intervention group were better than the control group. The difference in average ambulation ability after operation between the intervention group and the control group, the average ambulation ability of respondents in the intervention group was 14.14 with a standard deviation (SD=2.93), while for the control group, the average ambulation ability was 18.50 with the standard deviation (SD=5.56). Statistical test results obtained p-value of 0.017 (α<0.005), meaning that at alpha 5% a significant difference was seen in the average ability of early ambulation between respondents in the intervention group and the control group. There is evidence to suggest that pre-operative exercise of muscle strength is beneficial to early ambulation postoperative lower limb fracture.