Study found that exercise in heated pool brought relief from chronic pain
FRIDAY, Feb. 22 (HealthDay News) -- Regular exercise in a heated swimming pool can benefit people with the common, painful condition fibromyalgia, a new study suggests. Symptoms of fibromyalgia include chronic and severe pain and tenderness in muscles, ligaments and tendons; neck and shoulder pain; sleep problems; anxiety and depression. Women account for more than 90 percent of people with fibromyalgia, which has no known cause or cure. Current treatments include painkillers, exercise, relaxation therapy, and low-dose antidepressants, according to background information in a news release about the study, which was published Feb. 21 in the journal Arthritis Research & Therapy.
The study from the University of Extremadura in Spain and the University of Evora, Portugal, included 33 women with fibromyalgia -- 17 did supervised one-hour exercise sessions in a heated pool three times a week for eight months, while the other 16 did no aquatic training.
The researchers found that the long-term aquatic exercise helped reduce fibromyalgia symptoms and improved the women's health-related quality of life. In an earlier study, the same researchers found that a short-term exercise program helped ease symptoms, but pain returned when patients completed the exercise regimen.
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The addition of an aquatic exercise program to the usual care for fibromyalgia in women is cost-effective in terms of both health care costs and societal costs," and
"appropriate aquatic exercise is a good health investment," the researchers wrote.
