PACE Trial: People with ME Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Jim Cunningham
Main Page: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)Department Debates - View all Jim Cunningham's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(6 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Lady for securing this important debate. Does she agree with me that a lot of employers do not really understand how people with ME suffer and that that can affect their employment? It can also affect housewives.
Carol Monaghan
Absolutely. The public perceive it as mere tiredness, but it is so much more than that. The debilitating pain that ME sufferers experience is something that we all should be aware of.
The participants in the PACE trial received a range of different treatments, including cognitive behaviour therapy and graded exercise therapy, where patients were encouraged to become physically active and then increase the activity’s intensity. Unbelievably for a trial this large, none of the groups was given specific medical interventions. The results were published in The Lancet in 2011, with the contentious claim that CBT and GET brought 30% of patients back to normal, while 60% improved. The media reported that all ME sufferers had to do to recover was exercise. However, the report was immediately questioned by the patient community. How could exercise, the very thing that was known to worsen symptoms, actually help?