Amitani, Haruka, Sakato, Takashi, Asakawa, Akihiro · Explore (New York, N.Y.) · 2026 · DOI
A woman with Long COVID and ME/CFS who had severe fatigue, pain, brain fog, and sleep problems tried a gentle hands-on relaxation technique called kanshoho along with activity pacing advice. After 10 treatment sessions over 2.5 months, her symptoms completely resolved, and she was able to stop her antidepressant medication without symptom worsening. While this is just one person's experience, it suggests this low-pressure approach might help some ME/CFS patients who cannot tolerate exercise-based treatments.
Many ME/CFS patients cannot safely use exercise-based rehabilitation due to post-exertional malaise, which worsens symptoms after physical activity. This case suggests an alternative low-load physical therapy approach might help some patients and warrants investigation in controlled trials, potentially expanding treatment options for this severely limited population.
This single case report cannot establish that kanshoho causes symptom improvement—it only documents that improvement occurred during treatment. The patient's recovery could be due to placebo effect, natural disease course, the activity pacing advice, discontinuation of sertraline, or a combination of factors. Controlled trials comparing kanshoho to sham treatment in larger patient populations would be needed to determine true efficacy.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
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