Current Therapy for Fibromyalgia with Physical Activities and Psychosocial Interventions. A Systematic Review

Background: A multimodal therapy is recommended for the treatment of fibromyalgia. The combination of physical activities and psychosocial interventions has been shown to be effective. This paper presents a systematic overview of the current state of research regarding the therapy for fibromyalgia with physical activities and psychosocial interventions. Methods: The databases PubMed, Embase and PsychINFO were searched for studies published from the publication of the S3-guidelines up to September 2010. Results: Training of physical activities, such as aqua-training, aerobic and stretching has a positive impact on coping with the disease. Equally, psychosocial interventions, like multimodal therapy, behaviour therapy and relaxation, have been shown to reduce the symptoms of fibromyalgia. Conclusions: Future studies should analyse the long-term effects of the interventions. Moreover, studies should analyse the costs and benefits of the interventions. Furthermore, it should be analysed under which circumstances the patients will be able to transfer the physical activities into their daily lives.