RESEARCH ARTICLE
An Investigation into the Cognitive Deficits Associated with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Marie Thomas*, 1, 2, Andrew Smith1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2009Volume: 3
First Page: 13
Last Page: 23
Publisher ID: TONEUJ-3-13
DOI: 10.2174/1874205X00903010013
Article History:
Received Date: 14/6/2008Revision Received Date: 27/9/2008
Acceptance Date: 16/11/2008
Electronic publication date: 27/2/2009
Collection year: 2009
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
This study addresses, among other things, the debate as to whether cognitive deficits do occur with a diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). Previous studies have indicated a potential mismatch between subjective patient ratings of impairment and clinical assessment. In an attempt to tackle some of the methodological problems faced by previous research in this field, this study recruited a large sample of CFS patients where adequate diagnosis had been made and administered an extensive battery of measures. In doing so this study was able to replicate previous published evidence of clear cognitive impairment in this group and demonstrate also that these deficits occurred independent of psychopathology. The conclusion drawn is that cognitive impairments can be identified if appropriate measures are used. Furthermore, the authors have shown that performance changes in these measures have been used to assess both efficacy of a treatment regime and rates of recovery.
