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Chapter 5 – Discussion
embarrassment domains (Elble, et al., 2006; Lundervold, Pahwa, Ament,
& Corbin, 2003; Traub, Gerbin, Mullaney, & Louis, 2010).
The mean baseline SF-36 scores of this study were observed to be, on
average, lower than those of the general older adult population of New
Zealand and Australia (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1997; New
Zealand Ministry of Health, 1999). This observation was comparable to
the results found by Lorenz et al. (2006) who compared 102 ET patients
to the general German population. The authors found SF-36 scores of
the ET group to be lower than the scores attained by the general
German population.
Improvements in muscular strength may potentially translate to
improved QoL (Kell, Bell, & Quinney, 2001). In this study however, there
were no significant effects noted after the training period for either QoL
scale. This also contrasts previous findings in special populations such as
PD and stroke, where a RT intervention has resulted in QoL
improvements (Dibble, Hale, Marcus, Gerber, & LaStayo, 2009; H. Lee,
Kim, & Noh, 2008). It is possible that the short duration of this project
did not allow for sufficient time to achieve meaningful gains in physical
function that may have resulted in improved QoL. There also appeared
to be some within-subject variation in their scores on some of these
outcomes between assessment occasions. While the QoL measures
have been shown to be valid and reliable measures (Chia, et al., 2006;
Troster, et al., 2005) such variability may reflect a difficulty in
“translation” to a different population (New Zealand older ET patients)
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