Massage therapy in the management of fibromyalgia: A pilot study

Objective: To Study the clinical effectiveness of Swedish massage in fibrom yalgia syndrome [FMS]. Methods: Swedish massage [SM] was compared with standard physician care [SC ] without or with interim follow-up telephone calls [SCPC] in 37 subjects. Results: Baseline Arthritis Impact Measurement Scales [AIMS] of physical ac tivity, depression. anxiety, and pain for all patients indicated poor statu s. Baseline Quality of Well Being [QWB] scores showed impaired quality of l ife; the Rheumatology Attitudes Index [RAI] scores indicated helplessness. All but five subjects had a Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression sco re above 15. At four weeks [7-SM/S-SC/9-SCPC], the SM group improved in RAI [P = 0.06] and AIMS mobility [P = 0.05]. At 28 weeks [4-SM/6-SC/6-SCPC], t here were no significant intergroup differences. The 16 study completers ha d significantly lower baseline QWB scores [P = 0.025] than dropouts. Conclusions: Although our study showed some effect of SM in FMS at Our week s, benefits were modest and not significant at later time-points, perhaps a ttributable to low subject retention. The subject warrants further explorat ion. (C) 2001 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.