EFFECTIVENESS OF A COMMUNITY BASED EXERCISE PROGRAM IN DIMINISHING SYMPTOMS OF FIBROMYALGIA
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This study involved a multi-disciplinary evaluation of the effectiveness of a community based (YWCA) exercise program designed for individuals with fibromyalgia syndrome (FS). FS is a chronic condition characterized by diffuse muscle pain, stiffness and tender points. FS affects upwards of 5% of the population (mostly middle-aged females) and often results in reduced work capacity and depression. There is no known cure for FS, but many FS sufferers utilize exercise programs to control symptoms. Few studies have evaluated the effectiveness of these programs to diminish symptoms and influence the quality of life of FS sufferers. Participants for the study were 22 female volunteers (mean age 47 +/− 7.1 yrs) recruited from the exercise program. Anatomic location of 18 tender points associated with FS were assessed by trained medical practitioners according to the American College of Rheumatoloy 1990 classification. Each subject had several psychological, physiological and gait assessments completed before and after the 10 wk exercise session. Participant's weight, flexibility, and predicted P170 work capacity were not significantly influenced by the exercise program. Despite this, several assessments significantly changed as a result of completing the YWCA exercise program. The number of tender points significantly decreased (pre = 14.2, post = 11.9, p < .01). Psychologically, after the exercise program, the participants became more happy (p < 0.002), indicated improvements in their ability to perform work (p < 0.001), and became more self-efficacious in their ability to maintain an active lifestyle (p < .05). Additionally, gait analysis revealed significant improvements in self selected walking velocity (p < 0.05) and an improved hip/ankle muscle recruitment strategy at 3 prescribed walking speeds (p < 0.05). Results of the increased progression velocity and improved hip/ankle strategy indicate the positive influence of exercise on gait outcomes moving toward more normal gait pattern. Psychological evaluations suggest an increase in psychological functioning and quality of life while tender point assessments indicate a decrease in symptom severity. This suggests that a specific FS based exercise program can positively influence FS disease symptoms, gait patterns and functional capacity, despite little change in physical work capacity. Supported by the Trillium Foundation and the Kitchener-Waterloo (Canada) YWCA.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".