Patient Outcomes for Fibromyalgia Treatments Nursing Assignment
Patient Outcomes for Fibromyalgia Treatments
Busch et al. (2011) describes fibromyalgia as chronic condition that exhibits symptoms that include widespread pain, non-recuperative sleep and fatigue. Fibromyalgia can affect anyone of any age but is most prevalent in women aged 50 or older (Traska et al., 2010). Currently, the etiology of fibromyalgia is not understood. Fibromyalgia also has no specific diagnostic tests or cures (Becker et al., 2009). Diagnosis is established with guidelines set by the American College of Rheumatology (Gore, Sadosky, Zlateva, & Clauw, 2009). Gore, et al. (2009) states that the guidelines stress the incidence of pain and tenderness at least 11 of the 18 defined “tender points.” Treatment for fibromyalgia, according to Zhao, Sun, Watson, Mitchell, and Swindle (2011), is palliative measures that include pharmacological treatment, behavioral modifications, physical and exercise therapy, and alternative medicines.
This literature review is an examination of both pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic treatments for fibromyalgia and the effectiveness of the treatments. The following text will review and analyze several pieces of literature that provide information and statistics regarding the different methods of controlling the symptoms of fibromyalgia. The conclusion of this review will present suggestions and recommendations for enhancing and expanding the current body of research.
Patient Outcomes for Fibromyalgia Treatments Literature Review
Pharmacologic Treatment
Pharmacologic treatment for fibromyalgia includes many classes of medications. Medications include analgesics, antidepressants, anticonvulsants, opioids, and dopamine agonists (Zhao et al., 2011). The pathophysiology of fibromyalgia is not well understood, but is believed to be the result of an increase in pain signal transmission of the central nervous system (Gore et al., 2009). Gore et al. (2009) focused attention on the medications gabapentin and pregabalin. A commercial database was used to study identifying traits among patients newly prescribed gabapentin and pregabalin that included clinical characteristics, healthcare resource use, and pharmacologic therapy (Gore et al., 2009). Statistics were limited to those with at least one healthcare encounter during 2006 and 2007 with a diagnosis of fibromyalgia and naive to both gabapentin and pregabalin. The sample was majority female (85%) and greater than 70% over the age of 45 (Gore et al., 2009).