Tag: rehabilitation critique

Multidisciplinary rehabilitation treatment is not effective for myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome: A review of the FatiGo trial

Abstract:

The FatiGo trial concluded that multidisciplinary rehabilitation treatment is more effective for chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis in the long term than cognitive behaviour therapy and that multidisciplinary rehabilitation treatment is more cost-effective for fatigue and cognitive behaviour therapy for quality of life. However, FatiGo suffered from a number of serious methodological flaws. Moreover, it ignored the results of the activity metre, its only objective outcome. This jeopardizes the validity of FatiGo. Its analysis shows that there was no statistically significant difference between multidisciplinary rehabilitation treatment and cognitive behaviour therapy and neither are (cost-)effective. FatiGo’s claims of efficacy of multidisciplinary rehabilitation treatment and cognitive behaviour therapy for chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis are misleading and not justified by their results.

Source: Mark Vink and Alexandra Vink-Niese. Multidisciplinary rehabilitation treatment is not effective for myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome: A review of the FatiGo trial. Health Psychology Open. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2055102918792648 (Full article)

Rebuttal to Ickmans et al. association between cognitive performance, physical fitness, and physical activity level in women with chronic fatigue syndrome

Dear Editor:

In a study recently published in Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development, Ickmans et al. [1] found a substantially deteriorated physical exercise capacity in myalgic encephalopathy/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), as established by a cardiopulmonary exercise test (peak oxygen uptake [VO2max]: 19.1 ± 4.6 mL/min/kg, peak heart rate: 145.1 ± 22.4 beats per minute [bpm], peak workload: 114.2 ± 31.3 W, compared with 27.2 ± 5.6 mL/min/ kg, 170.0 ± 36.2 bpm, and 114.2 ± 31.3 W, respectively, in sedentary controls). Ickmans et al. Also observed various cognitive deficits in ME/CFS, e.g., prolonged choice and simple reaction times in various Stroop subtests and the psychomotor vigilance task test (PVT), more errors of omission in the PVT, and worse letter recall scores on the operation span task test, indicative for working memory impairment and reduced psychomotor speed.

You can read the rest of this letter here:  http://www.rehab.research.va.gov/jour/2013/509/pdf/pagevii.pdf 

Comment on: Association between cognitive performance, physical fitness, and physical activity level in women with chronic fatigue syndrome. [J Rehabil Res Dev. 2013]

 

Source: Twisk F. Rebuttal to Ickmans et al. association between cognitive performance, physical fitness, and physical activity level in women with chronic fatigue syndrome. J Rehabil Res Dev. 2013;50(9):vii-viii. http://www.rehab.research.va.gov/jour/2013/509/pdf/pagevii.pdf (Full article)