The Agency for Healthcare Research ...

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has issued terminates of a systematic review that provides the Social Security Administration with information to evaluate disability in characters with chronic fatigue syndrome. The report is available online at www.ahrq.gov/clinic/epcsums/cfsdissum.htm.

AHRQ reviewed 53 eligible studies of 4558 adult patients with chronic fatigue syndrome Quantitative syntheses were not possible because of insufficient and inconsistent reporting and be the effects The evidence supported the following conclusions:

* an patients with chronic fatigue syndrome have discrete cognitive or affective impairments in succession neuropsychologic tests, but these conclusions are not consistent, nor can causality associated with decreased profession rates be inferred.

* Depression was the sole impairment that appeared to be consistently associated with disability or work outcomes

* No specific interventions were prov effective in restoring a patient's ability to work.

* No specific patient characteristics have been defined that can predict positive employing outcomes in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome

* It is important to compare the patient's on a level of functioning at the time of diagnosis with his or her horizontal of functioning prior to the storm of illness, especially as it relates to work, place of education social, and home activities.

The AHRQ deduces that more studies are lacked to better assess and evaluate disability in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome

COPYRIGHT 2003 American Academy of Family Physicians

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