Objective:

To establish the effect of therapeutic dance and physical exercise on the symptomatology and number of painful points in women with fibromyalgia.

Materials and methods:

Quasi-experimental study that considered a randomized probabilistic sample. A total of 37 women with fibromyalgia underwent therapeutic dance (n=18) and physical exercise (n=19) programs. The average age was 47.4 ± 8.4 years. The length of the intervention was 3 months with a training frequency of 2 sessions per week and a duration of 60 minutes per session. All the participants provided information that allowed to determine the general pain index (GPI) and the scale of symptom severity (SSS).

Results:

Therapeutic dance and physical exercise significantly decreased the number of painful points (from 12.1 ± 2.8 to 7.3 ± 3.1 for pre- and post-values respectively (p = 0.000)) and the symptoms associated with fibromyalgia (8.7 ± 2.3 to 5.7 ± 2.6 for pre- and post-values respectively (p = 0.000)).

Conclusions:

Therapeutic dance and physical exercise have an equivalent beneficial effect on the reduction of the general pain index, depression, cognitive symptoms and sleep disorders in women with fibromyalgia.

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