T’ai chi improves fibromyalgia symptoms says evidence review

People with fibromyalgia should take a course in T’ai chi after researchers reveal that the ancient Chinese gentle exercise therapy improves sleep quality and lowers pain scores.

The research group set out to look at the effectiveness of T’ai chi in treating fibromyalgia and reported their findings in Complementary Therapies in Medicine. They focused on six relevant trials involving 657 people.

T’ai chi was found to reduce the total fibromyalgia impact questionnaire scores and pain scores, improve sleep quality, relieve fatigue, alleviate depression and enhance quality of life both physically and psychologically.

“T’ai chi exerts significantly greater effects on patients with fibromyalgia than standard care; therefore, we suggest that T’ai chi can be used as an alternative treatment,” the research group concludes. “However, more large-scale, high-quality, and multicenter trials are required to provide stronger evidence on the effectiveness of T’ai chi, as an alternative to aerobic exercise, compared with conventional therapeutic exercise.”

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