Graded exercise therapy

Graded exercise therapy (GET) is a form of physical therapy for the management of chronic fatigue syndrome where physical activity is gradually increased over time. It is a treatment offered to ME/CFS patients in the UK by the National Health Service (NHS) as specified in the NICE guidelines.

Patient Analysis of PACE Results
Graham McPhee and others created videos investigating the PACE trial data in relation to Graded Exercise Therapy.

Fear of exercise
The PACE trial investigators have stated that they believe a causal factor of the persistence of ME/CFS is fear of exercise. This claim as been criticized as unsupported by trial results.

Criticism
In 2010 at the Invest in ME International ME Conference Doctor Paul Cheney said "The whole idea that you can take a disease like this and exercise your way to health is foolishness. It is insane".

Notable studies

 * 2016, Exercise therapy for chronic fatigue syndrome (Lillebeth Larun, Kjetil G. Brurberg, Jan Odgaard-Jensen, Jonathan R Price)
 * 2016, Neurocognitive improvements after best-practice intervention for chronic fatigue syndrome: Preliminary evidence of divergence between objective indices and subjective perceptions. (Cvejic E, Lloyd AR, Vollmer-Conna U)
 * 2009, A review on cognitive behavorial therapy (CBT) and graded exercise therapy (GET) in myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) / chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS): CBT/GET is not only ineffective and not evidence-based, but also potentially harmful for many patients with ME/CFS (Frank Twisk)

Learn more

 * Wikipedia - Graded Exercise Therapy"
 * NHS Graded Exercise Therapy Booklet - A self-help guide for those with chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (pdf)