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Cochrane Review: 'Exercise therapy for chronic fatigue syndrome' 2017, Larun et al. - Recent developments, 2018-19

Discussion in 'General ME/CFS news' started by Trish, Jun 18, 2019.

  1. ME/CFS Skeptic

    ME/CFS Skeptic Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Don't think this the core of the issue to be honest. If a treatment like CBT or GET was crafted a little better as a convincing placebo than it might produce larger improvements in fatigue questionnaires. The lack of an adequate control group and the fact that therapists are not blinded to the intervention are the reason why I think there is no evidence for a clinical effect in these studies, not that they used low MCID's.

    But perhaps you agree and simply meant that one has to use every argument to explain the case that these results do not reflect real clinical improvements?
     
    Sean, Dolphin, JaneL and 3 others like this.
  2. Snow Leopard

    Snow Leopard Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    What is "clinically important" is qualitative, it cannot be defined by some arbitrary statistical procedure and most importantly, it needs to be defined by patients, rather than defining it as what is most convenient to researchers.
     
    Last edited: Jul 29, 2019
  3. Jonathan Edwards

    Jonathan Edwards Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I would agree that the whole point of a clinically important difference is that it has nothing to do with statistics.
     
  4. Hoopoe

    Hoopoe Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    It needs to take cost, time and effort into account. A cheap and simple intervention, like adding some magnesium and salt to your water bottle every day doesn't need to produce as large effects to be worthwhile as a costly and time consuming intervention like two hours of some therapy every week.
     
  5. Esther12

    Esther12 Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I agree it's not a core issue in itself, but think it could still be important.

    It could also be that a well done study, that properly explained to patients the potential problems with bias and nonblinded trials before assessing their attitudes to MCID in different circumstances, could be useful for highlighting other problems with GET research.
     
    MEMarge, Sean, Dolphin and 1 other person like this.
  6. Dolphin

    Dolphin Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    This is a published letter on clinical useful difference:

    https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(11)60689-2/fulltext

     
    ukxmrv, Medfeb, Sean and 6 others like this.
  7. Adrian

    Adrian Administrator Staff Member

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    Although I would agree it does make the point that statistical significance doesn't necessarily mean a difference that a patient would notice. Hence statisticians need to be aware of the issue.
     
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  8. Sly Saint

    Sly Saint Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    https://twitter.com/user/status/1156851565652774912



    "The Bill Silverman Prize
    Purpose
    Please note that this Prize is not for the preparation of a Cochrane Review; rather, it is for a published paper which demonstrates originality and critical thinking, either in evaluating any aspect of the preparation, maintenance or dissemination of Cochrane Reviews or about the work of Cochrane more generally. It should be of high quality, have been accompanied by constructive suggestions on how the relevant aspects of Cochrane’s work could be improved; and have had, or is likely to have, a positive impact on the scientific quality, relevance and use of Cochrane Reviews.

    Eligibility
    Peer-reviewed papers that fulfil the criteria described above under ‘Purpose’, and were published in the twelve-month period 1 April 2018 to 31 March 2019 are eligible for nomination in 2019.
    "

    pity didn't find out about this earlier (nominations close 2nd Aug).
     
    Barry, MEMarge, Robert 1973 and 2 others like this.
  9. Dolphin

    Dolphin Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Mark Vink and his papers (co-written by a relative (I presume) whose name escapes me) might be suitable??
     
    Barry, Amw66, rvallee and 6 others like this.
  10. NelliePledge

    NelliePledge Moderator Staff Member

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    Barry and Annamaria like this.
  11. Sly Saint

    Sly Saint Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Are there any more recent emails/correspondence on this available @Kalliope
    (sorry I can find the link to the website where they came from)
     
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  12. Snow Leopard

    Snow Leopard Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Sly Saint, rvallee, MEMarge and 2 others like this.
  13. Kalliope

    Kalliope Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Annamaria, Atle, Sly Saint and 10 others like this.
  14. Marit @memhj

    Marit @memhj Established Member (Voting Rights)

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    Sly Saint, Liessa, Atle and 4 others like this.
  15. ME/CFS Skeptic

    ME/CFS Skeptic Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Just saw this. Wonderful idea. I've tried to nominate him with this short text:

    "Mark Vink wrote two detailed critiques on Cochrane's reviews on CBT and exercise therapy for ME/CFS. His analysis helped Cochrane to adjust and update the review on exercise therapy for ME/CFS. Vinks efforts are quite exceptional given how sick he is due to ME/CFS. In his papers he thanks his parents for writing out his speech memo's as he is too ill to write."
     
  16. ME/CFS Skeptic

    ME/CFS Skeptic Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Ahh. So I was late by one day? Frustrating.

    I did manage to fill in all the forms, so maybe they might get the nomination after all. I hope so.
     
  17. Caroline Struthers

    Caroline Struthers Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Hi so sorry was on holiday and missed this!
     
    Grigor, Trish and NelliePledge like this.
  18. Kalliope

    Kalliope Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Not as far as I know. The letters that I thought were new had already been written about in @Marit @memhj 's link. I had just gotten confused with the dates.

    Who knows what the next step will be. I feel anything could happen :(
     
  19. Snowdrop

    Snowdrop Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Just for fun I'm going to guess August 23rd as the date.
     
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  20. NelliePledge

    NelliePledge Moderator Staff Member

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    Well it looks like you were too optimistic
     
    Hutan, MEMarge and Medfeb like this.

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