Is exercise effective, or just efficacious?
Three articles on PainSci cite Beedie 2016: 1. The Complete Guide to Chronic Tension Headaches 2. The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks 3. Strength Training for Pain & Injury Rehab
PainSci notes on Beedie 2016:
“Efficacy” is how well a treatment works in ideal circumstances, such as in a carefully contrived scientic test. Unfortunately, real life is rarely ideal: “effectiveness” is how well the same thing works in typical clinical settings and patients’ lives. Exercise is well-known to be efficacious, but is often not effective. That is, it works well when tested in the lab, but not for real patients. Effectiveness is what matters to patients!
This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:
- Exercise and education versus saline injections for knee osteoarthritis: a randomised controlled equivalence trial. Bandak 2022 Ann Rheum Dis.
- Association of Lumbar MRI Findings with Current and Future Back Pain in a Population-based Cohort Study. Kasch 2022 Spine (Phila Pa 1976).
- A double-blinded randomised controlled study of the value of sequential intravenous and oral magnesium therapy in patients with chronic low back pain with a neuropathic component. Yousef 2013 Anaesthesia.
- Is Neck Posture Subgroup in Late Adolescence a Risk Factor for Persistent Neck Pain in Young Adults? A Prospective Study. Richards 2021 Phys Ther.
- Sudden amnesia resulting in pain relief: the relationship between memory and pain. Choi 2007 Pain.