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ity of sleep (t = 3.89, p < 0.001),
feeling of well-being (t = 5.33, p < 0.001), and quality of life (t =
5.23, p < 0.001). There were 44 degrees of freedom in each analysis.
Figure 2 shows the distribution of pre- and posttreatment self-rated
pain scores for all study subjects, who ultimately received CES
treatment during the study, either double-blind or open clinical. It
can be seen that the pain scores dropped off in intensity fairly
dramatically for many of the subjects after treatment. Overall, there
was a 27% reduction in self--rated pain scores among the treated group
and a 28% decrease in the tender point scores.
Among the areas tested, the self-rated sleep score was the one that
showed the greatest improvement from the open clinical treatment,
which provided a higher level of stimulation intensity. Figure 3 shows
that fewer than 5% of the patients in this group ended the study
reporting little or no sleep, whereas over 60% of the study group
reported little or no sleep on entering the study. Again, there was no
significant placebo effect on sleep from the sham treatment.
There were fairly dramatic improvements on all of the psycho-logical
factors measured among the subjects receiving double-blind CES
treatment, as can be seen in Figure 4. Because of wide variation among
scores across all subjects, parametric testing could only find
significance on the vigor score (t = 2.97; p < 0.01, two-tailed) and
fatigue score (t = 1.93; p < 0.03, one-tailed p < 0.06 two-tailed; df
= 38).
Although no attempt was made to measure medication use among patients
during the study, it was noted that several of the patients who had
received actual treatment, but none of the untreated controls, told
members of the research team that they had completely eliminated all
pain and sleeping medication by the end of their 3 weeks of treatment.
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DISCUSSION
We closely approximated Wolfe's finding of sleep pattern disturbances
in 75% of the fibromyalgia patients he studied (17). Sixty percent of
our patients had a similar complaint going into the study. Others have
also noted this problem and report that it is most likely because of
intrusion of faster alpha waves during non-rapideye-movement sleep
(21). Studies cited above have shown that CES tends to normalize the
electroen- |
cephalogram after several treatment sessions (11). In
the present study, the patients responded as if this might be so, with
the vast majority of them reporting little or no restful sleep going
into the study and fewer than 5% of them persisting in this complaint
after CES treatment. Meanwhile, their pain associated with
fibromyalgia was significantly reduced.
Leventhal concluded his re-view of 34 studies of drug treatment and 12
studies of nondrug |
Cranial
Electrotherapy Stimulation
