Balneotherapy for rheumatoid arthritis (original) (raw)
Related papers
PubMed, 2015
Background: Treatment options for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) include pharmacological interventions, physical therapy treatments and balneotherapy. Aim: To evaluate the benefits and harms of balneotherapy in patients with RA. Design: A systematic review. Population: Studies were eligible if they were randomised controlled trials consisting of participants with definitive or classical RA. Methods: We searched various databases up to December 2014. Balneotherapy had to be the intervention under study, and had to be compared with another intervention or with no intervention. We considered pain, improvement, disability, tender joints, swollen joints and adverse events among the main outcome measures. We excluded studies when only laboratory variables were reported as outcome measures. Two review authors independently selected trials, performed data extraction and assessed risk of bias. Results: This review includes nine studies involving 579 participants. Most studies showed an unclear risk of bias in most domains. We found no statistically significant differences on pain or improvement between mudpacks versus placebo (1 study; N.=45; hand RA; very low level of evidence). As for the effectiveness of additional radon in carbon dioxide baths, we found no statistically significant differences between groups for all outcomes at three-month follow-up (2 studies; N.=194; low to moderate level of evidence). We noted some benefit of additional radon at six months in pain (moderate level of evidence). One study (N.=148) compared balneotherapy (seated immersion) versus hydrotherapy (exercises in water), land exercises or relaxation therapy. We found no statistically significant differences in pain or in physical disability (very low level of evidence) between groups. We found no statistically significant differences in pain intensity at eight weeks, but some benefit of mineral baths in overall improvement at eight weeks compared to Cyclosporin A (1 study; N.=57; low level of evidence). Conclusion: Overall evidence is insufficient to show that balneotherapy is more effective than no treatment; that one type of bath is more effective than another or that one type of bath is more effective than exercise or relaxation therapy. Clinical rehabilitation impact: We were not able to assess any clinical relevant impact of balneotherapy over placebo, no treatment or other treatments.
Balneotherapy (or spa therapy) for rheumatoid arthritis
The Cochrane database of systematic reviews, 2015
No cure for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is known at present, so treatment often focuses on management of symptoms such as pain, stiffness and mobility. Treatment options include pharmacological interventions, physical therapy treatments and balneotherapy. Balneotherapy is defined as bathing in natural mineral or thermal waters (e.g. mineral baths, sulphur baths, Dead Sea baths), using mudpacks or doing both. Despite its popularity, reported scientific evidence for the effectiveness or efficacy of balneotherapy is sparse. This review, which evaluates the effects of balneotherapy in patients with RA, is an update of a Cochrane review first published in 2003 and updated in 2008. To perform a systematic review on the benefits and harms of balneotherapy in patients with RA in terms of pain, improvement, disability, tender joints, swollen joints and adverse events. We searched the Cochrane 'Rehabilitation and Related Therapies' Field Register (to December 2014), the Cochrane Central...
Balneotherapy and Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Randomized Control Trial
The Israel Medical Association journal : IMAJ, 2016
The effects of balneotherapy on rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are still controversial partly due to poor methodology used in randomized controlled trials, as reported in the international medical literature. To determine whether spa therapy plus pharmacological treatment offers any benefit in the management of RA as compared to pharmacological treatment alone. We conducted a prospective, controlled, unblinded randomly assigned study of patients with RA according to American College of Rheumatology criteria. Following the 2007 recommendations of AFRETH, the method designed for this study was "immediate treatment versus delayed treatment." All patients were followed at the Centro Hospitalar do Porto and each physician observed the same patients throughout the study. Patients continued with their usual medications and maintained their daily life activities at home, at leisure and/or in the workplace. The spa therapy group received spa treatments for 21 days at S. Jorge Spa-Santa ...
Applied Sciences
Hand osteoarthritis (HOA) represents a common presentation of osteoarthritis, significantly affecting patients’ quality of life and daily activities. The 2018 EULAR recommendations underline the importance of a multidisciplinary approach, combining non-pharmacological and pharmacological treatments. Yet, the role of balneotherapy (BT) in the HOA therapeutic regimen remains unclear. This review seeks to bridge the gap by exploring recent randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that investigate the potential benefits of BT as a complementary intervention for managing HOA. This scoping review investigates original research articles published between January 2003 and August 2023 through a comprehensive search across MEDLINE (PubMed), Google Scholar, and Web of Science. The findings from this scoping review contribute to the growing corpus of evidence indicating that BT, particularly when employing specific methods like mud packs and mineral-rich baths, presents a promising role in reducing ...
Balneotherapy for osteoarthritis: a systematic review
Rheumatology International
This systematic review is aimed to evaluate the effects of balneotherapy with thermal mineral water for managing the symptoms and signs of osteoarthritis located at any anatomical site. The systematic review was conducted according to the PRISMA Statement. The following databases were consulted: PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, DOAJ and PEDro. We included clinical trials evaluating the effects of balneotherapy as a treatment for patients with osteoarthritis, published in English and Italian language, led on human subjects. The protocol was registered in PROSPERO. Overall, 17 studies have been included in the review. All of these studies were performed on adults or elderly patients suffering from osteoarthritis localized to knees, hips, hands or lumbar spine. The treatment assessed was always the balneotherapy with thermal mineral water. The outcomes evaluated were pain, palpation/pressure sensibility, articular tenderness, functional ability, quality of life, mobili...
Clinical Rehabilitation, 2011
Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of thermal mineral water compared with magnetotherapy without balneotherapy as control, in the treatment of hand osteoarthritis. Design: Randomized controlled single-blind follow-up study. Setting: Rheumatology specialist clinic of Gunaras Health Spa. Subjects: Patients between 50 and 70 years of age with hand osteoarthritis, randomly assigned into three groups. Interventions: The subjects in the first two groups bathed in thermal mineral water of two different temperatures (36°C and 38°C) for three weeks five times a week for 20 minutes a day and received magnetotherapy to their hands three times weekly. The third group received only magnetotherapy. Outcome measures: Visual analogue scale scores, handgrip strength, pinchgrip strength, the number of swollen and tender joints of the hand, the duration of morning joint stiffness, Health Assessment Questionnaire, and Short Form-36 questionnaire. The study parameters were administered at baseline...
BioMed research international, 2018
Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common musculoskeletal disease in the world. OA is the result of an inflammatory and degenerative process affecting the entire joint. Osteoarthritis, especially involving the knee, has a relevant socioeconomic impact in terms of drugs, hospital admissions, work absences, and temporary or permanent invalidity. Therapy of knee osteoarthritis is based on pharmacological and nonpharmacological measures. We conducted a systematic review of the studies published between 2002 and 2017 on spa therapy, mud-pack therapy, balneotherapy, and mud-bath therapy in the treatment of knee osteoarthritis in order to investigate the evidence of the efficacy of such treatment on pain, functional limitation, drug use, and quality of life. Overall, 35 studies were examined among which 12 were selected and included in the review if they are trial comparative. We have been able to illustrate the main results obtained in the individual studies and to elaborate these results in...
Spa therapy and short wave therapy are two of the most commonly used non-pharmacological approaches for osteoarthritis. The aim of this study was to assess their eYcacy in comparison to conventional therapy in patients with osteoarthritis of the knee in a single blind, randomized, controlled trial. Seventy-four outpatients were enrolled; 30 patients were treated with a combination of daily local mud packs and arsen-ical ferruginous mineral bath water from the thermal resort of Levico Terme (Trento, Italy) for 3 weeks; 24 patients were treated with short wave therapy for the same period and 20 patients continued regular, routine ambulatory care. Patients were assessed at baseline, upon completion of the 3-week treatment period, and 12 weeks later. Spa therapy and short wave therapy both demonstrated eVective symptomatic treatment in osteoarthritis of the knee at the end of the treatment, but only the spa therapy was shown to have eYcacy persistent over time. Our study demonstrated the superiority of arsenical ferruginous spa therapy compared to short wave therapy in the treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee, probably in relationship to the speciWc eVects of the minerals in this water.