Nursing, The Tamilnadu Dr. MGR Medical University. Abstract: Arthritis is a painful condition affecting joint, joint tissues and other connecting tissues with the manifestation of joint pain, swelling and stiffness which typically worsen with age. Tai chi and guided imagery could minimize those symptoms. The true experimental research design was used for the study. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 30 patients with arthritis as study participants (15 in experimental group and 15 in control group). The level of pain and physical function among patients with arthritis was assessed by WOMAC Osteoarthritis index. After pretest comprehensive intervention package that includes Tai Chi for 30 minutes thrice weekly and Guided Imagery for 30 minutes twice weekly was implemented to the experimental group for one month and the old age home routine was followed for the control group which was followed by the posttest. The study findings showed that the pretest and posttest mean pain score was 9.73 & 6.67 with standard deviation of 1.22 & 1.29 respectively in experimental group. The paired `t` value was 7.99*** which revealed that there was a highly statistically significant difference between the pretest and posttest level of pain at p<0.001. The pretest and posttest mean physical function score was 40 & 27.53 with standard deviation of 7.38 & 6.23 respectively in experimental group. The paired `t` value was 5.21*** which revealed that there was a highly statistically significant difference between the pretest and posttest level of physical function at p<0.001. The independent ‘t’ test value was 3.10 & 3.11 which revealed that there was a statistically significant difference in the posttest level of pain and physical function between experimental and control group at p<0.01. There was no statistically significant difference in the pretest and posttest mean pain and physical function score in the control group.
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