ME/CFS AUSTRALIA (SA) INC Registered Charity 698 Mailing address: GPO Box 383, Adelaide, South Australia 5001 Office: 266 Port Road, Hindmarsh, South Australia 5007 Ph: (08) 8346 3237 ('834 MECFS') Office Hours: Wednesdays, 10am-3pm Support Line: (Mondays and Thursdays, 10am-3pm) Ph: (08) 8346 3237 SA country callers: Ph: 1300 128 339 (local call)
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A review of CBT and GETSaturday 31 October 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 harm. Neuro Endocrinol Lett. 2009 Aug 26;30(3):284-299. [Epub ahead of print] Twisk FN, Maes M. ME-de-patiënten Foundation, Limmen, the Netherlands, the Netherlands. Benign Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) is a debilitating disease which, despite numerous biological abnormalities has remained highly controversial. Notwithstanding the medical pathogenesis of ME/CFS, the (bio)psychosocial model is adopted by many governmental organizations and medical professionals to legitimize the combination of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Graded Exercise Therapy (GET) for ME/CFS. Justified by this model CBT and GET aim at eliminating presumed psychogenic and socially induced maintaining factors and reversing deconditioning, respectively. In this review we invalidate the (bio)psychosocial model for ME/CFS and demonstrate that the success claim for CBT/GET to treat ME/CFS is unjust. CBT/GET is not only hardly more effective than non-interventions or standard medical care, but many patients report that the therapy had affected them adversely, the majority of them even reporting substantial deterioration. Moreover, this review shows that exertion and thus GET most likely have a negative impact on many ME/CFS patients. Exertion induces post-exertional malaise with a decreased physical performance/aerobic capacity, increased muscoskeletal pain, neurocognitive impairment, "fatigue", and weakness, and a long lasting "recovery" time. This can be explained by findings that exertion may amplify pre-existing pathophysiological abnormalities underpinning ME/CFS, such as inflammation, immune dysfunction, oxidative and nitrosative stress, channelopathy, defective stress response mechanisms and a hypoactive hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. We conclude that it is unethical to treat patients with ME/CFS with ineffective, non-evidence-based and potentially harmful "rehabilitation therapies", such as CBT/GET. PMID: 19855350 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] The above originally appeared here.
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