Effectiveness of Active Therapy-Based Training to Improve the Balance in Patients with Fibromyalgia: A Systematic Review, 2020, Del-Moral-Garcia et al

[Andy]

Balance impairment is a frequent disorder in patients with fibromyalgia (FMS), increasing the risk of falls and decreasing physical function and quality of life. In recent years, the use of active therapy-based training (ATBT) has increased, with the aim of improving balance in women with FMS.

Our study aimed to assess the effect of ATBT to improve different balance outcomes in subjects with FMS. A systematic review with meta-analysis was carried out. We searched PubMed Medline, SCOPUS, Web of Science, CINAHL, and PEDro (Physiotherapy Evidence Database) databases up to September 2020. We included randomized controlled trials (RCT) that assessed the balance in patients with FMS after ATBT and compared to other treatments or no intervention. In a random-effects model, the standardized mean difference (SMD) was used to calculate the effect size. Ten studies were included in the review providing data from 546 FMS patients with a mean age of 52.41 ± 2.90 years old (98% females).

Our results showed a medium effect favors ATBT with respect to other therapies for monopedal static balance (SMD = 0.571; 95% CI = 0.305, 0.836; p < 0.001), dynamic balance (SMD = 0.618; 95% CI = 0.348, 0.888; p < 0.001), and functional balance (SMD = 0.409; 95% CI = 0.044, 0.774; p = 0.028). No statistically significant differences were found for balance on unstable support.

The present meta-analysis showed moderate-quality evidence of a medium effect of ATBT to improve dynamic and functional balance and low-quality evidence of a medium effect to improve monopedal static balance with respect to other therapies or no intervention.

Open access, https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/9/11/3771/htm

 

[shak8]

Worth pursuing: prevention of falls by initiating balance exercises (mostly leg muscle work, and propioception) in fibro patients.

 

[rvallee]

TL;DR: this BS thing is slightly better at giving the illusion of being "effective" as those other BS things.

When you fail to even try to understand the problem, you end spewing a whole lot of BS. Like this galactic-level crap:

Some studies have found a correlation between the impact of the FMS symptoms such as pain, muscle weakness, or stiffness can have on the ability to properly maintain balance [10,11]. Therefore, an improvement in balance can be expected to lead to a reduction in the impact of FMS.

Good grief how the hell can we expect any bit of progress when absolute loons like this are involved in medical research? Even worse that this kind of research goes through a complex vetting process and actually gets approved and funded. This is just pathetic. This is beyond incompetence it's blatant misconduct and misuse of academic funding.

 

[alktipping]

improving balance is some thing that physios have done for decades mostly with the elderly and often after this patient group has had many falls . i personally benefitted from this advice in a pain clinic of all places . this advice is not to help or improve any course of illness just to decrease your chances of falling and the resultant cost to the nhs .

 

[rvallee]

improving balance is some thing that physios have done for decades mostly with the elderly and often after this patient group has had many falls . i personally benefitted from this advice in a pain clinic of all places . this advice is not to help or improve any course of illness just to decrease your chances of falling and the resultant cost to the nhs .

Yes that's a perfectly valid thing to help with, in some cases. But the idea that doing this will resolve other symptoms is not. We can help disabled people without exaggerating the outcomes, or keeping expectations to what is credible and possible. We all know what people read from stuff like this, that if you can "treat" some arbitrary thing the whole thing is dealt with and can be put out of mind as fully solved.

And of course it takes no account of the cost of doing so, with people who struggle with daily living. Benefits must be considered in full, not counted... hum... "creatively".