Hand Massage and Play Activity in the Elderly

There is no study found that examined the effects of hand massage and play activity on the loneliness, comfort and psychological well-being of the elderly in nursing homes. This study was planned as a pretest-posttest randomized controlled dual center study in order to examine the effects of hand massage and play activity on loneliness, comfort and psychological well-being in the elderly. 60 elderly people living in two nursing homes in Mersin city center will form the sample of the study. The sample will consist of three groups as hand massage group, game activity group and control group. The data were using the "Elderly Information Form", "Standardized Mini-Mental Test", "Loneliness Scale fort he Elderly", "General Comfort Scale", "Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale", "Hand Massage" and "Play Activity (Jenga) will be collected. Hand massage group will be applied hand massage for 20 minutes for four weeks; the game activity group will play Jenga (game activity) for one hour a week. The control group will receive the institution's standart of care. Frequency, number, mean, Student's test and/or Mann-Whitney U test, ANOVA and/or Kruskal-Wallis test, Chi-square test and/or Correlation Analysis will be used in the analysis of the data. As a result of this research, the effects and benefits of hand massage and play activity on the loneliness, comfort and psychological well-being levels of the elderly living in nursing homes will be determined, and it is anticipated that these effects and benefits will be included in evidence-based guidlines.