Acupressure for cancer fatigue

[charles shepherd]

Acupressure for cancer fatigue

From the health section of the (UK) Daily Mail today:

Cancer survivors could help reduce symptoms of tiredness and exhaustion with a simple do-it-yourself treatment, scientists have found.
Chronic fatigue is a common long-lasting effect of breast cancer treatment, with around a third of patients suffering moderate to severe levels for up to 10 years after the cancer is gone.
But a study has found that using acupressure – stimulation of specific pressure points on the body – can alleviate symptoms by around a third in just six weeks.
Results of the University of Michigan study found two thirds of women who had moderate to severe fatigue returned to normal tiredness levels by using a form of the treatment known as relaxing acupressure.

More here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...ronic-fatigue-saw-symptoms-improve-weeks.html

A few weeks ago I reported on the use of acupressure as a non drug treatment for nausea, where there is some fairly good research evidence:

http://www.meassociation.org.uk/201...ions-that-are-worth-considering-29-june-2016/

Whilst remaining sceptical about a role for acupressure for ME/CFS related fatigue, cancer fatigue does have some interesting overlaps with ME/CFS, and it would be interesting to hear from anyone who uses acupressure in relation to ME/CFS or treats patients who have ME/CFS with acupressure

Overlap between cancer fatigue and ME/CFS:

https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/2010681

 

[wdb]

This is the study
http://oncology.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2532352

It was a mostly un-blinded treatment vs no treatment (no placebo control) study with subjective measures.

Results: A total of 424 survivors of stages 0 to III breast cancer who had completed cancer treatments at least 12 months previously were screened, and 288 were randomized, with 270 receiving relaxing acupressure (n = 94), stimulating acupressure (n = 90), or usual care (n = 86). One woman withdrew owing to bruising at the acupoints. At week 6, the percentages of participants who achieved normal fatigue levels (Brief Fatigue Inventory score <4) were 66.2% (49 of 74) in relaxing acupressure, 60.9% (42 of 70) in stimulating acupressure, and 31.3% (26 of 84) in usual care. At week 10, a total of 56.3% (40 of 71) in relaxing acupressure, 60.9% (42 of 69) in stimulating acupressure, and 30.1% (25 of 83) in usual care continued to have normal fatigue. At neither time point were the 2 acupressure groups significantly different. Relaxing acupressure, but not stimulating acupressure, showed significant improvements in sleep quality compared with usual care at week 6, but not at week 10. Only relaxing acupressure significantly improved quality of life vs usual care at weeks 6 and 10.

 

[wdb]

Relaxing vs Stimulating Acupressure for Fatigue Among Breast Cancer Patients: Lessons to be Learned
James Coyne

• A chance to test your rules of thumb for quickly evaluating clinical trials of alternative or integrative medicine in prestigious journals.
• A chance to increase your understanding of the importance of control groups and blinding in evaluating the risk of bias of clinical trials.
• A chance to understand the difference between merely evidence-based treatments and science-based treatments.
• Lessons learned can be readily applied to many wasteful evaluations of psychotherapy with shared characteristics.