People commonly have muscle cramps at night while trying to sleep, during exercise, during pregnancy, and during haemodialysis (filtering of blood for people with severe kidney problems). ![]() Non‐drug treatments for leg and foot cramps A specific cramp outcome tool should be developed and validated for use in future research. Given the prevalence and impact of lower limb muscle cramps, there is a pressing need to carefully evaluate many of the commonly recommended and emerging non‐drug therapies in well‐designed RCTs across all types of lower limb muscle cramps. Overall, use of unvalidated outcome measures and inconsistent diagnostic criteria make it difficult to compare the studies and apply findings to clinical practice. The evidence is very uncertain about the effects of a combination of daily calf, quadriceps, and hamstring stretching on the frequency and severity of leg cramps in 50‐ to 60‐year‐old women with metabolic syndrome. Calf stretching alone compared to sham stretching for 12 weeks may make little or no difference to the frequency of night‐time lower limb muscle cramps in people aged 60 years and older. Due to limitations in study designs that led to risks of bias, and imprecise findings with wide CIs, we cannot be certain that findings of future studies will be similar to those presented in this review.Ī combination of daily calf and hamstring stretching for six weeks may reduce the severity of night‐time lower limb muscle cramps in people aged 55 years and older, but the effect on cramp frequency is uncertain. In two of the three studies, outcomes were at risk of recall bias, and tools used to measure outcomes were not validated. The evidence for adverse events was of moderate certainty as the studies were too small to detect uncommon events. No participant in these three studies reported adverse events. No study reported health‐related quality of life, quality of sleep, or participation in activities of daily living. It was not possible to fully analyse the frequency data and the scale used to measure cramp severity is not validated. The evidence is very uncertain about the effects of a combination of daily calf, quadriceps, and hamstring stretching on the frequency and severity of leg cramps in 50‐ to 60‐year‐old women with metabolic syndrome (N = 24). ![]() This trial did not report cramp severity. ![]() ![]() The certainty of evidence was very low for cramp frequency (change in number of cramps per night from week zero to week six) comparing the stretching group and the no intervention group (MD −1.2, 95% CI −1.8 to −0.6 80 participants very low‐certainty evidence).Ĭalf stretching alone for 12 weeks may make little to no difference to the frequency of night‐time lower limb muscle cramps in people aged 60 years and older (stretching group median number of cramps in the last four weeks (Md) 4, interquartile range (IQR) 8 N = 48 sham stretching group Md 3, IQR 7.63 N = 46) (U = 973.5, z = ‐0.995, P = 0.32, r = 0.10 1 RCT, 94 participants low‐certainty evidence). All trials evaluated a form of stretching for lower limb muscle cramps.Ī combination of daily calf and hamstring stretching for six weeks may reduce the severity of night‐time lower limb muscle cramps (measured on a 10 cm visual analogue scale (VAS) where 0 = no pain and 10 cm = worst pain imaginable) in people aged 55 years and older, compared to no intervention (mean difference (MD) ‐1.30, 95% confidence interval (CI) ‐1.74 to ‐0.86 1 RCT, 80 participants low‐certainty evidence). We included three trials, with 201 participants, all 50 years of age and older none had neurological disease.
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