De Berry S
Int J Aging Hum Dev. 1981;14(4):255-69. doi: 10.2190/5c1r-9d61-yg2n-a7lv.
Ten highly anxious women, between the ages of sixty-nine and eighty-four, participated in a five month study designed to test the hypothesis that progressive muscle relaxation would reduce psychosocial stress in a group of high risk senior citizens. The women, who had lost their husbands within the last five years, responded to an offer extended to nervous senior citizens to participate in a relaxation study. Five women were assigned to the treatment group and five to a control group. The treatment group received two weeks of baseline evaluation, ten weeks of one hour in vivo relaxation training, and ten weeks of home practice using taped instructions. The control group had an identical schedule except instead of progressive relaxation training they received a pseudorelaxation procedure and had no home practice. All participants were evaluated prior to training, at the end of training, and ten weeks after training. Participants were also measured on the following factors: 1) state and trait anxiety, 2) self-report muscle tension, 3) hours to fall asleep, 4) number of nocturnal awakenings, and 5) headaches. Results indicate significant differences on all five measures between the experimental and control group. With the exception of trait anxiety, the experimental group manifested significant improvements on the remaining five measures from baseline to end of training. For state anxiety, a significant improvement continued during the ten weeks of home practice following the end of training.
十名年龄在69岁至84岁之间的高度焦虑女性参与了一项为期五个月的研究，该研究旨在验证渐进性肌肉放松能否减轻一组高危老年人的心理社会压力这一假设。这些女性在过去五年内失去了丈夫，她们响应了向紧张的老年人发出的参与放松研究的邀请。五名女性被分配到治疗组，五名女性被分配到对照组。治疗组接受了两周的基线评估、十周每周一小时的现场放松训练，以及十周使用录音指导在家进行练习。对照组有相同的日程安排，但她们接受的是假放松程序而非渐进性放松训练，且没有在家练习。所有参与者在训练前、训练结束时以及训练结束十周后均接受了评估。参与者还在以下因素上进行了测量：1）状态焦虑和特质焦虑，2）自我报告的肌肉紧张程度，3）入睡所需时间，4）夜间醒来次数，以及5）头痛情况。结果表明，实验组和对照组在所有五项测量指标上均存在显著差异。除特质焦虑外，实验组在其余五项测量指标上从基线到训练结束均有显著改善。对于状态焦虑，在训练结束后的十周在家练习期间仍持续有显著改善。
