The plight of patients with severe ME/CFS has been the subject of a series of studies funded by ME Research UK over the last few years, and carried out by Victoria Strassheim, Prof. Julia Newton and colleagues at Newcastle University.
This work has included a review of
existing research on severe ME, an exploration of the
effects of deconditioning in these patients and, most recently, an exploration of
how to include severely affected ME/CFS patients in research.
This last phase included questionnaire packs sent out to patients with severe ME/CFS within the Northern England Clinical Network, and a series of home visits to five individuals, who underwent a number of assessments and took part in a recorded, semi-structured interview.
The researchers now plan to analyse these recordings in more detail, to identify patterns in the participants’ responses.
