Castro‐Sanchez 2012.
| Methods |
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| Participants |
Population source: participants were recruited from MS Association of Almeria in Spain. Numbers: randomised 73, Ai Chi 36, control 37 Inclusion criteria: MS diagnosis, age between 18 and 75 years, VAS pain score > 4 for at least two months, EDSS ≤ 7.5 Exclusion criteria: treatment with another complementary and alternative medicine (either current or within the previous 3 month, relapse requiring hospitalisation or steroid treatment within the past 2 months Age: experimental group (mean age 46 years, range 25‐75), control group (mean age 50 years, range 29‐75) Gender: experimental group(26 women,10 men), control group (24 women,13 men) Type of MS: experimental group (6 primary progressive,9 secondary progressive, 21 unknown), control group (9 primary progressive, 12 secondary progressive, 16 unknown) Pain type: musculoskeletal pain (back, cervical, legs, feet, arms, shoulder) |
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| Interventions |
Treatment: Ai Chi exercises Control: relaxation Duration: 20 weeks (twice a week), 4 sessions |
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| Outcomes |
Primary
Secondary
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| Notes |
Funding: not described Conflicts of interest: not described |
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| Risk of bias | ||
| Bias | Authors' judgement | Support for judgement |
| Random sequence generation (selection bias) | Low risk | Computer‐generated randomised list |
| Allocation concealment (selection bias) | Unclear risk | Allocation concealment not described |
| Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes | High risk | Study could not guarantee that participants were blinded to the nature of their group because they were all members of the same association |
| Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes | Low risk | Researcher blinded to group allocation |
| Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes | Low risk | None lost to follow‐up |
| Selective reporting (reporting bias) | Low risk | All outcomes reported |
| Other bias | Low risk | No other bias detected |