"Tired all the Time" (academic book) by Marie Thomas

Dolphin

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
From: Dr. Marc-Alexander Fluks

Source: Tired all the Time
Persistent Fatigue and Healthcare
Date: August 8, 2018
URL: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-93913-1

Ref:

- A Medical History of Chronic Fatigue https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-93913-1_1

- Chronic Fatigue Syndrome https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-93913-1_2

- Healthcare Provision for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-93913-1_3

- Persistent Fatigue in Chronic Conditions https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-93913-1_4

- Fatigue: An Overview of Chronic Fatigue and Recommendations for Future Research https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-93913-1_5

Tired all the Time - Persistent Fatigue and Healthcare ------------------------------------------------------ Marie Thomas - Bath Spa University Bath, United Kingdom

Introduction

This book explores the history, effects, diagnosis and treatment of chronic fatigue as well its significant links to other illnesses. Fatigue is a difficult symptom to accurately assess and quantify due to its subjective nature. Marie Thomas discusses the uncertainties and difficulties in its diagnosis as well as the broader effects of fatigue on quality of life.

Fatigue is an increasingly reported problem in primary care, and one that is associated with other chronic conditions as a secondary symptom. Using several case studies, this book describes how in many cases, a patient's primary condition can be managed; however General Practitioners are left unable to address the fatigue experienced, especially in older adults. Chapters consider the interventions that exist to manage fatigue - especially in the case of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) - before highlighting the lack of strategies in primary care for dealing with the problem. In the final chapter Thomas discusses potential interventions and gives recommendations for future research regarding fatigue. This book will be of interest to academics and practitioners in healthcare and psychology, as well as to patient groups and those who care for individuals with fatigue.

Keywords: chronic fatigue syndrome neurasthenia neurology occupational therapy psychotherapy medical intervention Epstein-Barr virus Myalgic Encephalomyelitis Upper Respiratory Tract Infection health-related behaviour cognitive performance depression tiredness

-------- (c) 2018 Springer
 
Her 2005 PhD submission: https://repository.cardiffmet.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/10369/6362/MThomas.pdf

The chapter on 'health care provision' doesn't seem to cite anything after 2009, which looks a bit odd: https://repository.cardiffmet.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/10369/6362/MThomas.pdf


I noticed that also. Many of the citations seem quite old. Though I think I saw NICE 2018 and a 2015 article by Crawley. (Not that those indicate anything of course. ;) Pardon my attitude.)
 
I noticed that also. Many of the citations seem quite old. Though I think I saw NICE 2018 and a 2015 article by Crawley. (Not that those indicate anything of course. ;) Pardon my attitude.)

And NICE is really 2007, it was just accessed in 2018.
 
Yes, I noted that 2009 date too.

I'm sure it's just a coincidence that this is when some of the more serious biomedical researchers waded in and rolled up their sleeves.

Reading her intro, I think her heart is in the right place; but if she got her PhD in the early 2000s her ideas of the illness may well be fixed, even if she is compassionate.
 
Marie Thomas is Reader in Psychology at Bath Spa University, so you can guess what it's all about.
The first pages of the chapters can be read there.

This is the beguinning of the 3d chapter:
View attachment 4121

I'm wondering what "rehab courses run by @Action for M.E. " she's refering to.
Probably the Westcare week-long residential programme. Action for ME took over Westcare. Within a few years they had stopped offering their courses.
 
Product description
From the Back Cover
This book explores the history, effects, diagnosis and treatment of chronic fatigue as well its significant links to other illnesses. Fatigue is a difficult symptom to accurately assess and quantify due to its subjective nature. Marie Thomas discusses the uncertainties and difficulties in its diagnosis as well as the broader effects of fatigue on quality of life.

Fatigue is an increasingly reported problem in primary care, and one that is associated with other chronic conditions as a secondary symptom. Using several case studies, this book describes how in many cases, a patient's primary condition can be managed; however General Practitioners are left unable to address the fatigue experienced, especially in older adults. Chapters consider the interventions that exist to manage fatigue - especially in the case of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) - before highlighting the lack of strategies in primary care for dealing with the problem. In the final chapter Thomas discusses potential interventions and gives recommendations for future research regarding fatigue. This book will be of interest to academics and practitioners in healthcare and psychology, as well as to patient groups and those who care for individuals with fatigue.



About the Author
Marie Thomas is Reader in Psychology at Bath Spa University, UK. Her expertise lies in the effects of a range of health-related factors in human mood, psychopathology and performance - including caffeine, alcohol, colds and influenza. She is particularly interested in fatigue and cognition, and her PhD focussed on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. She has more recently widened her research to investigate fatigue across a range of health conditions.

At only 92 pages, the price is even more astonishing.
The Table of contents suggests it is all about CFS.
 
To answer my own question, Multiconvergent therapy is a mix of CBT and GET.
Here's a paper from 2006 about a tiny trial done by the author of this book and others.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14733140600711955
The effect of Multi Convergent Therapy on the psychopathology, mood and performance of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patients: A preliminary study by Marie Thomas et al.
Abstract
Objectives:
Multi Convergent Therapy combines approaches such as Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and Graded Exercise Therapy in an holistic treatment of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Initial follow-up data showed that patients were benefiting from this individualised form of therapy. The objective of the present study was to evaluate this Multi Convergent approach, developed at a specialised Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Outpatient clinic in Cardiff, and compare it to Relaxation Therapy and control groups using multiple outcome measures.

Design: Thirty-five participants fitting the Centre for Disease Control criteria for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome were recruited from two outpatient clinics and members of our existing patient panel. Patients were assigned to Multi Convergent Therapy (N=12), Relaxation Therapy (N=14) or recruited as controls (N=9).

Methods: Each patient completed a battery of mood and performance tasks along with comprehensive set of questionnaires at baseline, post-treatment and at six-month follow-up. These measures had been validated in previous studies on untreated patients and matched healthy controls.

Results: Patients attending the Multi Convergent Therapy clinic showed statistically significant improvements in many of our measures. Most importantly we have produced data indicating that Multi Convergent Therapy provides improvements in objective measures of psychomotor performance and cognition.

Discussion: The outcomes of this small study are encouraging. Multi Convergent Therapy has not only produced results indicating significant improvements in standardised questionnaire based measures but also in objective cognitive performance tasks. The next step would be to assess Multi Convergent Therapy at the primary medical care level, with a greater number of patients to further evaluate its efficacy as a treatment for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

You can see a list of her other publications here. She doesn't seem to have published anything on CFS since 2009.
https://www.bathspa.ac.uk/our-people/marie-thomas/
 
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