Evaluation of Fatigue in Cancer Patients in An Area Affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake, 2020, Sato

[Andy]

Objective: The objective of this study is to evaluate fatigue in cancer outpatients receiving chemotherapy using an objective system and to clarify the type of nursing support needed after a disaster.

Methods: Based on the diagnostic criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome, the degree of subjective fatigue, autonomic function, and amount of physical activity were measured in cancer outpatients undergoing chemotherapy from an area affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake.

Results: The study participants were ten adults (8 men [80.0%] and 2 women [20.0%]). Significant differences were seen in subjective physical fatigue (P = 0.347), mental fatigue (P = 0.128), comprehensive fatigue (P = 0.621), and comprehensive evaluations (P = 0.293); however, no significant differences were seen in the results for changes over time for any survey item. The balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic nerve function changed statistically significant with time (log low frequency [LF] [P = 0.039] and log LF/high frequency [HF] [P = 0.021]). In all participants, autonomic nervous function was enhanced in the sympathetic nervous system, and the sympathetic nervous system was dominant. Significant differences were observed between the three measurements for mean diurnal activity (P = 0.027), total sleep time (P = 0.011), sleep efficiency (P = 0.019), awakening (P = 0.032), and naps (P = 0.037).

Conclusions: In the event of a disaster, in addition to self-care support for side effects caused by anticancer drugs, patients' physical and mental conditions are assessed in terms of fatigue using objective indicators, and then, appropriate nursing support is provided. The nurse grasps objective facts behind the patient's subjective data and systematically recommends adjustments to the patient's daily life. In addition, by providing appropriate information to patients, patient education specific to each patient is provided.

Open access, http://www.apjon.org/article.asp?is...issue=2;spage=203;epage=208;aulast=Sato#ref11

Chronic fatigue syndrome would appear to be assessed according to criteria from this, Establishment of objective fatigue diagnosis method and creation of chronic fatigue diagnosis guidelines for patients complaining of chronic fatigue with autonomic dysfunction, [In Japanese] https://www.fuksi-kagk-u.ac.jp/guide/efforts/research/kuratsune/h23/pdf/h23houkoku.pdf.
I doubt very much, although can't know for certain, that we would recognise the criteria as having any value to ME research.

 

[rvallee]

"What if we actually compared apples and oranges?" said very weird people.

Really starting to think that the main reason medical research is so expensive is because so much of it serves absolutely no purpose and has no chance whatsoever of providing anything of value, that there is a tendency to fund familiar research guaranteed to fail over groundbreaking research that is uncertain and this is where most of the funds get wasted.

There's no denying that had the ME patient community been given adequate funds straight up we would have produced results at a pace 10-100x, if not more, what even a properly funded effort would have yielded. It really looks like this may be a universal truth. We would at least have chosen qualified professionals willing and able to work the problem, which is surprisingly important when trying to solve a complex problem. Surprising to some anyway.

There's some truth to the fact that scientific discoveries often happen by accident but you can't actually have positive accidents if you are way out there in Imaginationland, you actually have to be digging in the right place to begin with.