Psychiatric and neuropsychiatric presentations associated with severe coronavirus infections, 2020, Rogers et al

Perhaps there might be something of interest in this.

Free full text:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(20)30203-0/fulltext

 

This looks like a press release or something close to it.

Coronavirus infections may lead to delirium and potentially PTSD, study suggests

https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/c...-potentially-ptsd-study-suggests-1000306.html

 

I was thinking about it and if many in the ME/CFS community hadn’t been proactive in highlighting that ME/CFS is often post-viral and that lingering symptoms might be similar to post-viral fatigue syndrome/ME/CFS, there might have been more media coverage like this paper and press release.

 

IMHO you musnt blame ME people for being too pushy in media coverage that is just not the way it is, mainstream media focus is about following public interest.

If one can generalise about the mainstream media, since looking for sellable stories is a competitive business, many will consider that after so long in lock down everyone just wants to get back to normal and put COVID behind them, which is perfectly understandable and a natural healthy social response to any illness, to come back after weakness and show strength and get back to the usual pattern of subliminal microaggressions which masquerade as cheerfulness.

However a lot has changed, with our new awareness which rapid testing provides we will find this is not possible, the threat of COVID will hang around and change our behaviour re contagion and not before time. Living at these densities we have to be aware of this problem. One day something far more deadly may infect humanity and we may need to be able to lock it down effectively, which the patchy response to COVID shows we just cannot do properly at the moment.

So for now it is recovery and return to normal-which-is-not-normal stories and what-have-we-learned stories but the situation is ever changing and in short order they will be looking for new angles.

From a theatrical perspective, you sometimes have to let things fall away before bringing them back to people's attention, its just a question of neurological fatigue, there is only so much thinking people are willing to do in one go. I think the ME angle on news treatments is a matter of timing. Now there is a lull in ME coverage in favour of hope stories and then when everyone thinks it is all over there will be scope for sober retrospectives, human interest narratives and shock horror stories about how COVID is still out there and some people never escaped the nightmare. IMHO

A recent example of this was a short piece on the possibility of lung scarring in severe COVID on the BBC but it was very short, skipped over the issue of long term repercussions.

I think what matters more is that epidemiology and bioscience perspectives are now much higher on the governmental agenda and in the long term this will help ME research campaigning to be taken seriously. So while the public treatment matters, it is possibly more important how the scientific community perceive ME, not as a dead end career doom or heart sink diagnosis based on old folk tales but instead as a relevant widespread problem for human health.

 

Can somebody help me with language/use of medical terms here:

Why isn't it called "neurological" but (neuro)psychiatric?

What's the difference between the three terms?

 

I know someone who was referred to a neuro psychiatric unit for FND / PTSD and from what I can see it was a place to say.. Even though you have these neurological symptoms they’re not actually caused by anything neurological, we know that for sure... so we can do an “education” course about your symptoms (ie the psychosomatic model), graded exercise etc. Emphasising the “psychiatry” part. Also use of anti depressants / other psychiatric drugs.

 

I am concerned about the potential of the PTSD angle. Not in as far as it might examine purely psychiatric symptoms but because of the risk that physical symptoms arising from unexplained pathways may be put down arbritrarily to PTSD as a psychiatric phenomenon. The next move might well be "Our opponents are naive dualists, we never believed trauma was just psychiatric, so when we say PTSD we have the physical in mind too.......". This could go off in the familiar duplicitous direction.
I'd been expecting this one, as large numbers of post covid as an unexplained physical condition will ask questions and hiving sufferers off under PTSD might be a "NICE" move.
That is not to say there is no legitimate case for watching out for genuine psychiatric PTSD among post(?) Covid but not a blanket post (?)Covid =PTSD.
We should watch this one.

 

This is not a "proper" article - it is just described as a "coronavirus update". Personally, I suspect the numbers quoted are all absolute bilge, but they allegedly come from various mental health and children's charities.

Source : https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/live-coronavirus-local-lockdown-updates-4276532

 

Interesting (but unsurprising) thread on Twitter from an ME sufferer called Dan Wyke :

Code:

https://twitter.com/Dan_Wyke/status/1277522836148686854

https://twitter.com/user/status/1277522836148686854


Clicking on #longcovid comes up with lots more of the same.