NICE 2024: Dementia: What else could it be? [Differential diagnosis for cognitive issues, ME not included.]

This CKS, NICE document relating to Differential diagnosis entitled
Dementia; What else could it be? raises several alternative diagnoses but no mention of ME/CFS.

Differential diagnosis | Diagnosis | Dementia | CKS | NICE

Particularly as we get older, any cognitive issues, (classic for ME sufferers eg not finding the right word, short term memory loss, confusion, speech issues etc) are likely to be attributed to aging and possibly dementia. This is particularly frustrating when you have had the impediments for many years, they started abruptly (as opposed to developing over time) and they haven't been properly recognised as being part of chronic ME.

(Similarly, if the cognitive issues do get recognised as ME symptoms they are invariably put into the 'depression/anxiety' category.)

Also doesn't help when a number of other LTCs are also claiming 'brain fog' as a symptom.

I don't know what the solution is, but the constant emphasis on fatigue has let so many other important symptoms become obscured only to then be dismissed as 'part of getting older' .

 

I am also of the opinion that “brain fog” might not be very fruitful terminology for us. Like “fatigue”, it seems to have seeped into common usage to describe general slower brain when sleepy or on drugs.

While the “brain fog” we experience is vastly more disabling.