SITES AND USE IN NEWSLETTERS. PLEASE TWEET AND RE-TWEET ON TWITTER.
Pacing should be key ME/CFS therapy option: Belgian, UK, US& Australian
experts explain (ProHealth, 21 December 2011)
http://www.prohealth.com/library/showarticle.cfm?libid=16725
In advance of reading this paper about pacing (Pacing as a strategy to
improve energy management in myalgic encephalomyelitis / chronic fatigue
syndrome: A consensus document, Goudsmit et al, 2011) in full - not
always easy for long-term sick or disabled people, dependent on
benefits, if purchase or subscription is required - it is not possible
to assess whether it adds anything to a common sense notion, with which
I have never heard anyone disagree: Do as much as you can, without
overdoing things, then rest or sleep as required and repeat.
Since, however, there are probably as many models of pacing as there are
advocates of it and as many individual differences in estimating the
limits of overdoing things, which vary daily, with the unpredictable
nature of this illness, it is nigh impossible to compare strategies in
any scientifically controlled way.
Most worrying is that some therapists are actually equating "pacing"
(almost universally agreed as "helpful") with "Graded Exercise Therapy"
(GET), which all research to date shows makes a majority of people with
M.E. worse (Twisk& Maes, 2009), some irrecoverably so.
My note of caution is that we must be sure exactly what it is that we
are talking about before we can decide whether something is advisable
and should be embraced or is to be avoided like the plague.
Best wishes
drjohngreensmith@mecommunitytrust. org
M.E. Community Trust. org
---------------------------------------------
Send posts to CO-CURE@listserv.nodak.edu
Unsubscribe at http://www.co-cure.org/unsub.htm
Select list topic options at http://www.co-cure.org/topics.htm
---------------------------------------------
Co-Cure's purpose is to provide information from across the spectrum of
opinion concerning medical, research and political aspects of ME/CFS and/or
FMS. We take no position on the validity of any specific scientific or
political opinion expressed in Co-Cure posts, and we urge readers to
research the various opinions available before assuming any one
interpretation is definitive. The Co-Cure website <www.co-cure.org> has a
link to our complete archive of posts as well as articles of central
importance to the issues of our community.
---------------------------------------------
