In the authors' words
“An exercise therapy three times per week for 16 weeks in a warm-water pool is an adequate treatment to decrease the pain and severity of FM well as to improve cognitive function in previously unfit women with FM and heightened painful symptomatology.”
What was measured
- Joint pain Reported an improvement
- Memory and thinking Reported an improvement
About the study
- Type
- Randomised trial
- Who took part
- Midlife women, osteoarthritis or joint pain
- How many
- 60
- How long
- 16 weeks
- Exercise
- Water-based exercise
- Cited
- 71 times, per Europe PMC
- PubMed ID
- 18173915
How to read this. Each line is one study, summarised in plain language from its PubMed abstract, with the authors' own sentence underneath on the study page. A count of studies is not a verdict: trials differ in size, length and quality, and a result in one group of women may not hold in another. Nothing here is medical advice.
Summaries are generated, then checked by machine against the abstract they came from; any summary that could not be matched word for word was left out. Our clinical lead is reviewing the summaries topic by topic, and this note will change when that is done. Corpus last refreshed 2026-11-03. Spotted a mistake? Tell us and we will fix the summary or remove the study.
Similar studies
- A meta-analysis of six trials with 432 postmenopausal women with knee osteoarthritis found aquatic exercise improved symptoms but not pain, stiffness, function, or quality of life compared to control.
- A meta-analysis of 23 trials in people with osteoporosis, 95 percent female with an average age of 67, found exercise such as resistance training, balance training and Pilates improved mental health, quality of life and pain.
- Middle-aged women with fibromyalgia did a 16 week aquatic exercise program and researchers found fewer tender points and improved sleep and cognitive function, with no change in anxiety.
- In postmenopausal women with mild knee osteoarthritis, 16 weeks of aquatic resistance training changed cartilage composition on MRI and improved cardiorespiratory fitness by 9.8% compared with controls.