Tai Chi beats stretching in fibromyalgia study
Last Updated: 2010-08-19 16:04:18 -0400 (Reuters Health)
By Gene Emery
BOSTON (Reuters) - The slow, flowing movements of tai chi are better for relieving pain and other symptoms of fibromyalgia than conventional stretching exercises, doctors reported on Wednesday.
Patients who learned tai chi had improvements throughout the three months of lessons, said study leader Dr. Chenchen Wang of the Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston.
"Week by week they changed. The pain and depression improved, and a lot of people were depressed," Dr. Wang told Reuters in a phone interview. The study appears today in the New England Journal of Medicine.
"They feel better. People said it changed their life. Only two or three feel it didn't help," Dr. Wang said.
Although they said the study should be repeated with a larger group to see if, for example, the enthusiasm of the instructor played a role, Dr. Gloria Yeh and her colleagues at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston said it might be time to give tai chi a chance.
"Aside from reductions in pain, patients in the tai chi group reported improvements in mood, quality of life, sleep, self-efficacy and exercise capacity," Dr. Yeh's team wrote in a commentary in the same journal.
"The potential efficacy and lack of adverse effects now make it reasonable for physicians to support patients' interest in exploring these types of exercises, even if it is too early to take out a prescription pad and write 'tai chi,'" they said.
The 33 patients in the tai chi group learned movement and breathing exercises from a tai chi master in 60-minute classes twice a week, and they were encouraged to practice at least 20 minutes per day.
An equal number of patients in the placebo group got health lectures and stretching classes, comparable to what people do when they wake up in the morning. "This was not real exercise," Dr. Wang said.
The researchers used several assessment tools, including the 100-point Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire. The people taking tai chi saw their scores improve by an average of 28 points, compared to a nine-point improvement in the stretching group.
Researchers should test the technique with a larger group for a longer period, compare different styles, and see if it is better than other forms of exercise, such as yoga, Dr. Yeh said.
SOURCES:
http://link.reuters.com/mem95n
http://link.reuters.com/nem95n
N Engl J Med 2010.
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