Opinion The overlooked burden of persistent physical symptoms: a call for action in European healthcare, 2024, Toussaint et al

[Dolphin]

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(24)00309-0/fulltext

The overlooked burden of persistent physical symptoms: a call for action in European healthcare
Toussaint, AnneBlanch, Jordi et al.
The Lancet Regional Health – Europe, Volume 48, 101140

Summary

Regardless of their cause, persistent physical symptoms are distressing somatic complaints that occur on most days for at least several months.

They are common in patients with somatic diseases, functional somatic disorders, mental disorders, and undiagnosed medical conditions and are often associated with significant impairment and medical costs.

Despite their prevalence and impact, persistent physical symptoms are often overlooked in medical care.

This Personal View stresses the importance of recognising persistent physical symptoms as a European health issue.

It advocates improvements in research, clinical management, public health, and policy.

Efforts should prioritise integrating models of symptom perception and biopsychosocial perspectives into medical care and education, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, and developing standardised guidelines to enhance patient care, reduce stigma, and improve clinical outcomes.

Increased research funding can accelerate progress in understanding and effectively managing persistent physical symptoms.

Addressing these priorities will support patients and healthcare professionals, ensuring adequate care and a higher quality of life for affected individuals.

 

[Dolphin]

Calls to action in respected medical journals have effectively highlighted the need for research and funding for conditions like low back pain and Long COVID.113,114 Scientific associations like the European Association of Psychosomatic Medicine (EAPM) and the Functional Neurological Disorder Society (FNDS) emphasize the importance of persistent physical symptoms and support research through special interest groups and conference symposia. SymPCa, an interdisciplinary European conference on symptoms in primary care, unites researchers from different disciplines and backgrounds to discuss state-of-the-art research on symptoms. Pan-European collaborations and consortia, such as Pain Alliance Europe, the European Pain Federation, INTEGRATE-pain, the Low Back Pain Phenotyping Consortium (BACPAP), the Oslo Chronic Fatigue Consortium, or the European Network for Vertigo and Balance Research (DIZZYNET) share best practices, advocate for policy changes, and support research. We urge researchers and funders to prioritize innovative interdisciplinary research for persistent physical symptoms in Europe. Panel 5 outlines the need for high-quality research and offers suggestions for achieving it.

 

[rvallee]

Hard to really capture how absurd this is. The people who have covered up this problem for decades are trying to present themselves as saviors, with completely fake sympathy. And the massively increased burden of Long Covid, which should have ended this reign of error, is instead used to kick it up several notches. With the exact model they used to cover it up, made it a topic of sneering mockery for most doctors.

They even know, somewhat, but can't reason out of their belief system:

Population-based cohorts point towards an increase in symptom burden,115 which may have been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic in recent years. Latest meta-analyses show the presence of post-COVID symptoms such as fatigue in 30% of patients two-years after COVID-19.

No, they stick with their "regardless of cause", because cause-and-effect don't matter to them. They also strongly mirror how the fossil fuel companies did the same thing, industries that have perfected this duplicity for decades, even presented things like 'clean coal' and methane as the solution, even though both are actually worse.

Reading through this, it's exactly the same model they applied to us and again with Long Covid. It doesn't matter that it's failed miserably, that they already do this and that it's been exposed as a complete sham. It's going to happen, bigger, slower and more expensive than ever. All the debunking we did is irrelevant. They don't care. This is what power wants, just like they did with COVID, and they will pursue this as long as they can.

It's exactly the same as this, from a prominent COVID denier and minimizer:

Again and again what you find from those neglected is that the thing that kills all hope for them is seeing how little effort is going to solving it, and how this miserable psychosomatic nonsense is basically like someone screaming in your face that they are never going to allow this to be solved, will do whatever is necessary to keep us under their control. But they are completely blind to it. It's the most absurd thing in the world right now, because it basically mirrors all the other disasters, but it's done entirely by the giant technocratic health care industry.

I've rarely seen any group of people so dedicated to failure. It's almost an obsession, an addiction.

 

[Sean]

somatic diseases, functional somatic disorders, mental disorders, and undiagnosed medical conditions​

How are they discriminating between these, particularly the first three from the last one? Surely a core problem here is the lack of means to reliably do so.

Efforts should prioritise integrating models of symptom perception and biopsychosocial perspectives

Calls to action in respected medical journals have effectively highlighted the need for research and funding for conditions like low back pain and Long COVID.113,114 Scientific associations like the European Association of Psychosomatic Medicine (EAPM) and the Functional Neurological Disorder Society (FNDS) emphasize the importance of persistent physical symptoms and support research through special interest groups and conference symposia. SymPCa, an interdisciplinary European conference on symptoms in primary care, unites researchers from different disciplines and backgrounds to discuss state-of-the-art research on symptoms. Pan-European collaborations and consortia, such as Pain Alliance Europe, the European Pain Federation, INTEGRATE-pain, the Low Back Pain Phenotyping Consortium (BACPAP), the Oslo Chronic Fatigue Consortium, or the European Network for Vertigo and Balance Research (DIZZYNET) share best practices, advocate for policy changes, and support research. We urge researchers and funders to prioritize innovative interdisciplinary research for persistent physical symptoms in Europe. Panel 5 outlines the need for high-quality research and offers suggestions for achieving it.

So, a blatant self-promotion from the BPS club.

Surprise. Or not.