‘A study investigating the effectiveness of The Lightning Process® programme to treat children with mild or moderate CFS or ME finds symptoms improve,’ reports the University of Bristol.
The study, published in the BMJ the states ‘the Lightning Process is effective and is probably cost-effective when provided in addition to specialist medical care (SMC) for mild/moderately affected adolescents with CFS/ME’ and reports that participants allocated to SMC+LP, compared to those allocated to just SMC, had:
· Improved physical function, which increased further at 12 months
· Better school attendance, which continued at 12 months
· Less fatigue, which continued at 12 months
· Greater improvement in anxiety symptoms, which continued at 12 months
· Less depression scores at 12 months
· Lowered pain scores at both six and 12 months
Scales used
1. Physical function (SF-36 physical function subscale)
2. Fatigue (Chalder Fatigue scale)
3. Days attended at school
4. Anxiety, Depression (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and the Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale)
5. Pain (Visual analogue pain scale) (measured at baseline and 6 months)
6. Quality-adjusted life years (QALYs, derived from the EQ-5D-Y) 7. General health and cost effectiveness (adapted 4 item Work Productivity and Activity Impairment: General Health V2.0 and a resource use questionnaire assessing their child’s health service use (e.g. GP or specialist care), educational service use (e.g. school counsellor), health related travel and other family costs.)’
