Tele- Yoga therapy for Patients with Chronic Pain during Covid-19 Lockdown: A Prospective Nonrandomized Single Arm Clinical Trial

  1. Neha Sharma
  2. Dipa Modi
  3. Asha Nathwani
  4. Bhavna Pandya
  5. Jaydeep Joshi

Reviewed by

Read the full article

Listed in

Log in to save this article

Abstract

Background

Pain management services and support programs have been closed during pandemic. Self-management options, particularly for chronic pain, is required which can be undertaken at one’s own convenience and without leaving home.

Objectives

To evaluate the impact of tele-yoga therapy on patients suffering with chronic pain reducing pain intensity, disability, anxiety and depression.

Material and methods

In total 18 patients with different chronic pain diagnosis were recruited to individual yoga Therapy sessions twice a week at home (tele-yoga) using a videoconference app. Each participant followed set of practices every day at home. Main outcome measures included pain intensity, pain disability, anxiety and depression scores. Data were collected at baseline and after 6-weeks of intervention.

Results

There were significant improvement in pain intensity from Baseline to 6-weeks (P<0.001); also pain disability (P<0,001). Both scores of anxiety and depression reduced at the end of intervention period (P<0,001; P<0,001).

Conclusions

Pilot results suggest that tele-yoga therapy may be an effective tool to self-manage chronic pain and related functional and psychological impacts. Further larger studies, randomized, controlled trials are needed to confirm the preliminary outcome.

Trial Registration

ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04457388 ; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04457388

Article activity feed

  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.07.16.20154229: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Statistical methods: MedCalc Statistical Software version 19.3.1 (MedCalc Software Ltd, Ostend, Belgium; https://www.medcalc.org; 2020) was used to conduct statistical analysis.
    MedCalc
    suggested: (MedCalc, RRID:SCR_015044)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Small sample size and no control group are major limitations of the study. Further large clinical trial is needed to confirm the findings.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: We found the following clinical trial numbers in your paper:

    IdentifierStatusTitle
    NCT04457388CompletedTele-Yoga Therapy for Chronic Pain

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.07.16.20154229v1 on medRxiv