Fibromyalgia, more common in women than men, is a chronic condition characterized by pain in your muscles, ligaments and tendons, as well as fatigue and multiple tender points (areas in your body where slight pressure causes pain). Intensity of symptoms may vary and may never disappear completely. However, it is not progressive or life threatening.
Doctors usually prescribe painkillers, sometimes low-dose antidepressant together with exercise and relaxation technique.
The study was carried out by Narcís Gusi of the University of Extremadura in Caceres, Spain and Pablo Tomas-Carus of the University of Évora, Portugal included a group of 33 female fibromyalgia patients. Seventeen of these patients have one-hour training exercises in warm pool three times a week for 8 months while the other 16 did no aquatic training.
The findings showed that long-term aquatic exercise program helped in decreasing the symptoms and gives desirable health-related quality of life to the patients. In an earlier study, researchers had shown that short-term exercise program also ease the symptoms but the pain returns when the patients stopped the program.
"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 said.
