Development of a recumbent isometric yoga program for patients with severe CFS/ME, Oka et al, 2017

Binkie4 said:
Research supporting yoga in ME. Scientists- is it any good?
Have just seen that Colin Barton posted this on MEA fb page yesterday evening.


https://bpsmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13030-017-0090-z

ETA:first line
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It is a potentially interesting study, though yet again another study that relies on subjective measures which are most likely to be subject to placebo or bias effects, and are not necessarily indicators of any change in the underlying condition.

Further there are the problem of the lack of a formal control group, there is some anecdotal attempt at using participants as their own controls, though in theory this could be a valid experimental design, it was not used here in a way that allows clear conclusions.

Further the authors seem to have no clear idea what they are attempting to do, compounding issues of making rest and relaxation more efficient with improving physical function.

However for me the biggest problem is not addressing the issue of orthostatic intolerance. My personal experience is that orthostatic intolerance can be a more significant limiting factor on activity than such as energy exerted. Unless they have some measure of orthostatic intolerance in their participants it is totally unclear what they are looking at or if they even have a homogenous group.

I need to read the article more thoroughly, but I suspect the theoretical biases of the authors yet again result in an experimental design producing in uninterpretable results.
 
Binkie4 said:
Research supporting yoga in ME. Scientists- is it any good?
Click to expand...

Tiny feasibility study (12 patients) of recumbent isometric yoga, using a mood scale and the Chalder Fatigue questionnaire as outcome measures. Nothing useful can be deduced from this other than it's feasible to carry out such as study.

I found more details of the study here that describe the 'recumbent isometric yoga' developed for this study.

https://storage.googleapis.com/quetechce-com/material/Chronic_Fatigue_Syndrome_and_Yoga.pdf

It doesn't bear any resemblance to what would be done in a yoga class, as far as I can see. It's basically lying down in low light to avoid overstimulation and over 20 minutes moving into a few different recumbent positions and holding them for a bit, plus lots of lying on your back relaxing. Just getting to a local yoga class would use far more effort.

That feasibility study shouldn't be used to justify any yoga class.
 
Development of a recumbent isometric yoga program for patients with severe chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis: A pilot study to assess feasibility and efficacy

Takakazu Oka, Hisako Wakita, Keishin Kimura
BioPsychoSocial Medicine, The official journal of the Japanese Society of Psychosomatic Medicine, 2017

https://bpsmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13030-017-0090-z

This is a study related to one on seated yoga discussed here.
 
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I hate it when folks, researchers and physicians, do not understand cause and pathology of the disease and want to push exercise and rehabilitation at all costs. If you do not understand the disease, you study it.

(Where they published their findings (journal of psychosomtic medicine) is a huge red flag too)
 
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