Attention deficit

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Attention deficit/decreased attention span is one of the symptoms of the cognitive dysfunction associated with ME/CFS.

Presentation[edit | edit source]

Prevalence[edit | edit source]

  • In a 2001 Belgian study, 93.0% of patients meeting the Fukuda criteria and 95.9% of patients meeting the Holmes criteria, in a cohort of 2073 CFS patients, reported attention deficit.[1]
  • Katrina Berne, PhD, reports a prevalence of 70-100% for concentration/attention deficit.[2]

Symptom recognition[edit | edit source]

  • In the Canadian Consensus Criteria, impairment of concentration and short-term memory consolidation is an optional criteria for diagnosis, under the section Neurological/Cognitive Manifestations.[3]
  • In the Fukuda criteria, the symptom of substantial impairment in concentration can be used to help form a diagnosis.[4]
  • In the Holmes criteria, inability to concentrate is an optional criteria for diagnosis, under the section Minor Symptom Criteria - Neuropsychologic Complaints.[5]
  • In the IACFS/ME Primer for Clinical Practitioners (2014), decreased attention span is listed in the cognitive symptoms.[6]

Notable studies[edit | edit source]

  • 2006, Cognitive dysfunction relates to subjective report of mental fatigue in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome

    "CFS patients with significant complaints of mental fatigue (score of mental fatigue 2 standard deviations above the mean of nonfatigued subjects) exhibited significant impairment in the spatial working memory and sustained attention (rapid visual information processing) tasks when compared to CFS patients with low complaints of mental fatigue and nonfatigued subjects. In CFS patients with significant mental fatigue, sustained attention performance was impaired only in the final stages of the test, indicating greater cognitive fatigability in these patients."[7]

Possible causes[edit | edit source]

Potential treatments[edit | edit source]

See also[edit | edit source]

Learn more[edit | edit source]

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ De Becker, Pascale; McGregor, Neil; De Meirleir, Kenny (December 2001). "A definition‐based analysis of symptoms in a large cohort of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome". Journal of Internal Medicine. 250 (3): 234–240. doi:10.1046/j.1365-2796.2001.00890.x.
  2. ↑ Berne, Katrina (December 1, 1995). Running on Empty: The Complete Guide to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFIDS) (2nd ed.). Hunter House. p. 59. ISBN 978-0897931915.
  3. ↑ A Clinical Case Definition and Guidelines for Medical Practitioners: An Overview of the Canadian Consensus Document Pg 8. 2005.
  4. ↑ The CDC (Fukuda 1994) Definition for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
  5. ↑ The 1988 Holmes Definition for CFS
  6. ↑ International Association for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome / Myalgic Encephalomyelitis; Friedberg, Fred; Bateman, Lucinda; Bested, Alison C; Davenport, Todd; Friedman, Kenneth J; Gurwitt, Alan R; Jason, Leonard A; Lapp, Charles W; Stevens, Staci R; Underhill, Rosemary A; Vallings, Rosamund (2014), Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Myalgic Encephalomyelitis Primer for Clinical Practitioners (PDF)
  7. ↑ Capuron, Lucile; Welberg, Leonie; Heim, Christine; Wagner, Dieter; Solomon, Laura; Papanicolaou, Dimitris A; Craddock, R Cameron; Miller, Andrew H; Reeves, William C (2006), "Cognitive Dysfunction Relates to Subjective Report of Mental Fatigue in Patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome", Neuropsychopharmacology, 31: 1777–1784, doi:10.1038/sj.npp.1301005
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