Effects of exergames on the symptoms of depression in women with fibromyalgia: a randomized controlled trial

• Main Authors: Juan Luis León-Llamas, Daniel Collado-Mateo, Alvaro Murillo-Garcia, Santos Villafaina, Narcís Gusi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Asociación Para el Progreso de la Biomedicina 2019-04-01
• Series: Jounal of Negative and No Positive Results
• Subjects: fibromyalgia; depression; exergames; exercise; dance
• Online Access: https://www.jonnpr.com/PDF/3026.pdf
• ISSN: 2529-850X; 2529-850X

Aims: to evaluate the effectiveness of an exercise program with a duration of 8 weeks based on exergames on reducing the symptoms of depression in women with fibromyalgia. To compare the effectiveness of this intervention program in participants with and without depression symptoms. Settings and Design: a randomized controlled trial, single blind, with 8 weeks of intervention. Methods and Material: a total of 76 women with fibromyalgia participated in this study. The Geriatric Depression Scale 15-item was used to assess the depression symptoms of the participants. The exergame VirtualExFM was used for the intervention to exercise group. Statistical analysis used: normality through Shapiro-Wilk and Kolmogorov-Smirnov. Differences between groups and subgroups by Mann-Whitney U test. Differences between mean ranges of the same group by Wilcoxon test. Results: the results showed that the participants of exercise group showed significant differences in the symptoms of depression after completing the 8 weeks of the intervention period. Significant differences were observed in the exercise subgroup with low scores on depression symptoms. There were no significant differences between the groups. Conclusions: our results do not show that there is a significant effect on the symptoms of depression in women with fibromyalgia, after performing a physical exercise program based on exergames with a duration of 8 weeks. Future research should focus on studying interventions in creative arts therapies. It would be interesting to extend the period of intervention to know if the symptoms of depression would change.