Purpose The primary purpose was to quantify and compare physical activity in fibromyalgia (FM) patients to age-matched healthy controls using both objective and self-report measures. Secondary purposes were to compare self-reported and objective measurement of physical activity and to evaluate the relationship between physical activity and pain and mood. Method Patients with FM (n = 39) and healthy controls (n = 40) completed the International Physical Activity Questionnaire and wore an accelerometer at the hip for 7 d. Pain and mood were measured using the McGill Pain Questionnaire, Pain Catastrophizing Scale, Beck Depression Inventory, State–Trait Anxiety Inventory, Profile of Mood States, and Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire. Results FM patients had significantly lower physical activity than controls measured by both the International Physical Activity Questionnaire and accelerometer (P < 0.05). Both groups self-reported significantly greater moderate and vigorous physical activities than were measured by the accelerometer (P < 0.05). Self-reported and objective measures of time spent in different intensities of activity showed significant correlations in healthy controls (r = 0.41–0.51, ρ = 0.41, P < 0.05). No significant correlations between measures were found in FM patients (P > 0.05). Finally, physical activity levels were negatively related (r = −0.37, P < 0.05) to depressed mood for FM patients and positively related (r = −0.41, P < 0.05) to self-reported vigor for healthy controls. Conclusions This controlled study objectively demonstrates that FM patients are less physically active than healthy controls, thus extending on two earlier investigations that did not show differences in total physical activity levels using wrist-mounted actigraphy methods. Physical activity levels were not predictive of pain in FM but were significantly related to depressed mood. FM patients may also have a greater variability in their manner of self-report than healthy controls. Therefore, physical activity measurement in FM patients should not be limited solely to self-report measures.

Fibromyalgia (FM) has been conceptualized as a disorder of the central nervous system, characterized by augmented sensory processing and an inability to effectively modulate pain. We previously reported that physical activity (PA) is related to brain processing of pain, providing evidence for a potential mechanism of pain management. The purpose of this study was to extend our work by manipulating pain modulation and determining relationships to both PA and sustained sedentary behavior. Eleven women with FM completed accelerometer measures of PA and underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging of painful heat, administered alone and during distracting cognitive tasks. Results showed that PA was significantly (P<0.005) and positively related to brain responses during distraction from pain in regions implicated in pain modulation including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), the dorsal posterior cingulate and the periaqueducatal grey. A significant negative relationship occurred in the left anterior insula. For sedentary time, significant negative relationships were observed in areas involved in both pain modulation and the sensory-discriminative aspects of pain including the DLPFC, thalamus and superior frontal and pre and postcentral gyri. These results suggest that physical activity and sedentary behaviors are related to central nervous system regulation of pain in FM.

Meditation-CBT intervention reduced pain severity and sensitivity to experimental thermal pain stimuli in patients with opioid-treated CLBP.

It is concluded that: 1) men and women differed in PT, SBP, and DBP before ISO EX; and 2) analgesia after ISO EX is observed more consistently in women.