New paper from the Netherlands: the treatment of CFS

[Sean]

PS Good on the partners of these patients!

+1

 

[alex3619]

I think this calls for Schrodinger's cat.

Yes, the only cat in existence that can simultaneously be both dead and alive and has an added air of mystery.

 

[alex3619]

Oh dear, it looks like they forgot to use any objective outcome measurements again

But, @Valentijn, when they use objective outcome measures the study fails? You wouldn't want that would you? [sarcasm, in case there is any doubt]

 

[A.B.]

Coincidentally psychotherapy and placebo work less the more objective and "hard" the outcome measures are. In cancer, they have no effect whatsoever on survival. There isn't a lot of room for interpreting whether someone is dead or not.

 

[alex3619]

There isn't a lot of room for interpreting whether someone is dead or not.

Nobody is even a little bit dead? Zombies aren't real!!!????

Quite frankly I would rather take a sugar pill than participate in these kinds of therapies, and I have major blood sugar issues.

 

[Aurator]

There isn't a lot of room for interpreting whether someone is dead or not.

Frankly, even if ME patients did die at the end of the study, I can't help thinking the psychs would find a way of putting some kind of posiitve spin on it: e.g. that your death demonstrated the ultimate danger of having an oversolicitous "significant other".

 

[Countrygirl]

[QUOTE="A.B., There isn't a lot of room for interpreting whether someone is dead or not.[/QUOTE]

The DWP (Department of Works and Pensions) would disagree with you. They wrote to a friend with ME to inform him that his 'Post-Vival Syndrome' was not of sufficient severity to warrant an award of sickness benefit.

 

[Esther12]

Translation: partners of patients who are really really sick treat them better and they are less likely to recover.

Comment: So what?

That was my thought too. Anyone seen the full paper to see if the accounted for this in their analysis anywhere?

 

[MeSci]

Translation: partners of patients who are really really sick treat them better and they are less likely to recover.

Comment: So what?

PS Good on the partners of these patients!

A severely-ill sufferer on another forum who had spent thousands of pounds trying everything she could find and ended up worse, and who had been vehemently against psychological treatments, was taken in by another psychoquack and persuaded that her husband was keeping her ill by looking after her and being supportive and sympathetic. Not content with that, the psych persuaded her to leave the marital home temporarily and get a flat on her own.

Who would have predicted that she would have got worse, been unable to look after herself and had to go through all the subsequent exertion, stress and cost of re-selling the flat and moving back home?

Well...I think pretty-much everyone on the forum. But what do we know...?

 

[CantThink]

The DWP (Department of Works and Pensions) would disagree with you. They wrote to a friend with ME to inform him that his 'Post-Vival Syndrome' was not of sufficient severity to warrant an award of sickness benefit.

I knew someone who had acromegaly and pancreatic cancer. He was denied benefits because he was not sick enough to qualify, and died 3 weeks later.

 

[Grigor]

I'm so ashamed. What are these people thinking....seriously.

And all that based on a questionnaire?? Really??

 

[Mij]

I knew someone who had acromegaly and pancreatic cancer. He was denied benefits because he was not sick enough to qualify, and died 3 weeks later.

This is terrible. I would think that just a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, which has a very poor prognosis would qualify him for benefits. Not sick enough? What does that have to do with it?

 

[CantThink]

This is terrible. I would think that just a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, which has a very poor prognosis would qualify him for benefits. Not sick enough? What does that have to do with it?

I guess they deemed him well enough to work!!! It really sums up the system. If it won't support someone like him... I just don't know who will qualify.

 

[user9876]

Translation: partners of patients who are really really sick treat them better and they are less likely to recover.

Comment: So what?

PS Good on the partners of these patients!

An alternative translation would be peoples partners attitudes help reflect on how they can be persuaded to fill out surveys saying they feel better after CBT.

 

[user9876]

Coincidentally psychotherapy and placebo work less the more objective and "hard" the outcome measures are. In cancer, they have no effect whatsoever on survival. There isn't a lot of room for interpreting whether someone is dead or not.

But they have tried to claim psychotherapy helps with cancer survival rates. I believe the original research included an outlier that skewed the mean but not the median so they only published the mean.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/a-formal-request-for-retraction-of-a-cancer-article/
http://dcscience.net/coyne-psych-bul-07.pdf

 

[Countrygirl]

I guess they deemed him well enough to work!!! It really sums up the system. If it won't support someone like him... I just don't know who will qualify.

There was a report yesterday about a woman who phoned the DWP to inform them that she had just been given a diagnosis of cancer. The response was, 'So what?' Then she was asked if she was claiming under the 'special rules', so she agreed to do this. Then she was told that this meant she would have to die within six months and if she didn't they would prosecute her. Ian Duncan-Smith, meanwhile, was reported yesterday as saying withdrawing peoples' benefits was a 'compassionate' act by the Tory government. The UK is certainly a scary place to live if you are sick.

 

[Aurator]

We don't really need to go beyond the very first lines ("Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) for chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) leads to a significant decrease in CFS-related symptoms and disability") of this study in order to see the fundamental absurdity of it. The study's authors are using as a starting point for their study a proposition that, far from being proven, requires itself to be proved before anything that depends on it can have validity. The authors, like many psychs involved with ME/CFS, have simply disappeared up their own backsides.

 

[daisybell]

This is as good as the doctor who claimed that people with CFS get better if their partners die!

 

[jimells]

If I recall correctly, it was one of her side kicks who phoned me a little while ago asking me if I would take part in one of her studies on some aspect of our psychological problems.

Did the phone call trigger your Oppositional Defiance Disorder?

 

[jimells]

Then she was asked if she was claiming under the 'special rules', so she agreed to do this. Then she was told that this meant she would have to die within six months and if she didn't they would prosecute her.

Wow, die within six months or go to jail. That would fit in well in the U.S. where suicide-by-cop is a growing cause of death. This happened to my neighbor's brother a month ago. He'd been dealing with depression for years. Something happened, somebody called the cops, and they shot him in his own house in front of his elderly mother. Very, very disturbing.