Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of longstanding exercise therapy versus usual care in patients with axial spondyloarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis and severe limitations: The protocols of two parallel randomized controlled trials.
Maria A T van Wissen, Max M H Teuwen, Cornelia H M van den Ende, Thea P M Vliet Vlieland, Alfons A den Broeder, Wilbert B van den Hout, Wilfred F Peter, Dirkjan van Schaardenburg, Astrid M van Tubergen, Maaike G J Gademan, Salima F E van Weely
PMID 34780107WHAT IT FOUND
This is a study protocol, not a result.
It sets out how two trials will test a year or more of supervised exercise therapy against usual care in people with axial spondyloarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis and severe functional limitations. No outcomes are reported yet.
What this paper is
This is the published protocol for two parallel randomised controlled trials, one in axial spondyloarthritis and one in rheumatoid arthritis, comparing 52 weeks or more of supervised exercise therapy with usual care in people who have severe limitations in daily activities despite medical treatment. It describes who will be recruited, what the exercise programme will contain, which outcomes will be measured and how the analysis will be run, but no participants have been analysed and no results are reported. There is no finding here to act on.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that long-term exercise therapy works for people with severe rheumatic disease. It is a protocol, so the two trials have not reported results, and the authors' statement that they expect the treatment to be effective and cost-effective is a hypothesis, not a finding.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →