Balneotherapy (or spa therapy) for rheumatoid arthritis

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...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cochrane database of systematic reviews 2015-04, Vol.2015 (4), p.CD000518
Main Authors: Verhagen, Arianne P, Bierma-Zeinstra, Sita M A, Boers, Maarten, Cardoso, Jefferson R, Lambeck, Johan, de Bie, Rob, de Vet, Henrica C W
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Antirheumatic Agents - therapeutic use
Arthritis, Rheumatoid - therapy
Balneology
Complementary & alternative medicine
Cyclosporine - therapeutic use
Humans
Hydrotherapy
Mud Therapy
Osteoarthritis - therapy
Pain Management - methods
Publication Bias
Radon - therapeutic use
Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic
Rheumatoid Arthritis
Rheumatology
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Summary: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 Register of Controlled Trials (2014, Issue 1), MEDLIINE (1950 to December 2014), EMBASE (1988 to December 2014), the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) (1982 to December 2014), the Allied and Complementary Medicine Database (AMED) (1985 to December 2014), PsycINFO (1806 to December 2014) and the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro). We applied no language restrictions; however, studies not reported in English, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, German or French are awaiting assessment. We also searched the World Health Organization (WHO) International Clinical Trials Registry Platform for ongoing and recently completed trials. Studies were eligible if they were randomised controlled trials (RCTs) consisting of participants with definitive or classical RA as defined by the American Rheumatism Association (ARA) criteria of 1958, the ARA/American College of Rheumatology (ACR) criteria of 1988 or the ACR/European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) criteria of 2010, or by studies using the criteria of Steinbrocker.Balneotherapy had to be the intervention under study, and had to be compared with another intervention or with no intervention.The World Health Organization (WHO) and the International League Against Rheumatism (ILAR) determined in 1992 a core set of eight endpoints in clinical trials concerning patients with RA. We considered pain, improvement, disability, tender joints, swollen joints and adverse events among the main outcome measures. We exclude
ISSN:1469-493X
DOI:10.1002/14651858.CD000518.pub2