Apologies if this has already been posted! I couldn’t find it. This is a recently published textbook on Long COVID. It is described as an “authoritative medical reference on the various ways in which Long-COVID presents and an in-depth discussion of its mechanisms and potential therapeutic options”. https://www.wiley.com/en-au/Unravelling+Long+COVID-p-9781119891321 There are three excerpts of the textbook available on the website: a detailed table of contents, a short excerpt and an index. There’s not much available, but what I’ve read is of concern. They’ve divided the cohort into two groups (three actually… see screenshot), but they don’t provide any evidence to support they’re conceptualisation of each group (at least not in the excerpt I read): - Long COVID Disease: people who exhibit obvious organ damage. This group, they argue, can be best understood through the medical model of disease. - Long COVID Syndrome: people without measurable organ damage. They argue that this group can be best understood through the biopsychosocial model. The section on Long COVID Syndrome is called “Unexplained symptoms: Medicine’s blind spot”. PEM is listed in the book’s index but doesn’t have its own subheading in the book. The Appendix suggests three areas of future research into Long COVID Syndrome: autoimmunity, microbiome, viral persistence (ie: not just exercise or rehab etc), so it’s perhaps not taking a purely BPS approach to the condition, but without access to the body of the book it’s hard to not be pessimistic. Has anyone read this textbook or know more about it?
"Syndrome" never inspires confidence "autoimmunity" - any evidence - doubt it --- seems to be a buzz word, generally with no good evidence --- "microbiome" - rarely has been beneficial i.e. provided treatments -- seems often to be consequence "viral persistence" - any evidence --- seems to be a fairly standard thing to throw out i.e. without any evidence
