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CDC study reveals CFS patients are severely physically impaired, but have normal mental health

Aurator

Senior Member
Messages
625
I find this interesting:
Mental health is a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.
What am I missing here??
I can't see where that's written, unfortunately, but it strikes me as a very inept definition of mental health. The inevitable conclusion it leads to is that all people who are physically debilitated in some way have imperfect mental health.

And how does mental health necessarily intersect with working productively and fruitfully and making a contribution to the community? Are children and retired people mentally less well than the employed?

This is codswallop.
 
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panckage

Senior Member
Messages
777
Location
Vancouver, BC
Would you believe that it came from the WHO?
I live in Canada and this is the exact way we see mental health. The most important thing is that as people we respect each other. We try to find the best place in society given our strengths and weaknesses. We are put here to help each other
 

Scarecrow

Revolting Peasant
Messages
1,904
Location
Scotland
I live in Canada and this is the exact way we see mental health. The most important thing is that as people we respect each other. We try to find the best place in society given our strengths and weaknesses. We are put here to help each other
You meant to address your reply to Aurator, surely?
 

Aurator

Senior Member
Messages
625
The most important thing is that as people we respect each other. We try to find the best place in society given our strengths and weaknesses. We are put here to help each other
Those beliefs are fine but they are not critical factors in a definition of mental health, just as realising one's abilities and working productively or making a contribution to the community are not. These are little more than sociological prejudices trying to graft themselves on to a definition of mental health.
 

anciendaze

Senior Member
Messages
1,841
I live in Canada and this is the exact way we see mental health. The most important thing is that as people we respect each other. We try to find the best place in society given our strengths and weaknesses. We are put here to help each other
pe_c080816.jpg
 

panckage

Senior Member
Messages
777
Location
Vancouver, BC
Those beliefs are fine but they are not critical factors in a definition of mental health,
I'm not going to play the semantics game. It is a modern way to view mental health that is making measureable positive change in my community. As noted above this is the WHO definition. Feel free to take it up with them ;P
 

Aurator

Senior Member
Messages
625
I'm not going to play the semantics game. It is a modern way to view mental health that is making measureable positive change in my community. As noted above this is the WHO definition. Feel free to take it up with them ;P
I'm uncertain what you mean by "the semantics game". I spoke in earnest and, I felt, quite plainly. It's not unreasonable to expect definitions given by the WHO to be adequate and unobjectionable; this one is neither, for reasons I've unambiguously stated. I have no interest in taking the matter up with them when doing so would be futile.
 

Justin30

Senior Member
Messages
1,065
Has anyone brought this News to the Press in Multiple Citys throughout the US and Canada?

I know it was publized on this website just wondering if we can stir some more interest up amongst the general public.

Thanks
 

RustyJ

Contaminated Cell Line 'RustyJ'
Messages
1,200
Location
Mackay, Aust
Has anyone brought this News to the Press in Multiple Citys throughout the US and Canada?

I know it was publized on this website just wondering if we can stir some more interest up amongst the general public.

Thanks

Mental health function was used as domain or characteristic of the illness in the slide, per Dr Unger's comments, as defined by the SF-36 self reporting survey, irrespective of how it is defined elsewhere. I don't believe it was used here in the psychogenic sense, tho I understand the concerns of patients.

Even if it was, it decreases the number of parameters that psychs can use to characterize their application of the term functional.
 
Messages
58
Just to reiterate, the term "functional status" in the clinical sense, and the way it is referred to in the paper, specifically regards degrees of impairment in the activities of daily living (ADLs). In severe illnesses, hospitalizations, and advanced aging clinicians and allied health professionals will look for a loss of functional status or decline in functional status as another factor in assessing overall health, and will develop treatment plans with an eye towards either returning patients to their former functional status or help them adapt to that change in status. This is a primary function of PT and OT consultations in hospitals.

Beautiful graphic in Simon's link: straightforward for a layman, lots of nuance for those who take a deeper interest. I noticed that the SF-36 was used as part of the series of questionnaires used to determine these status scores, but will need to dig in to see what was used in other scoring criteria.
 

Justin30

Senior Member
Messages
1,065
So....where are the ME/CFS Controls coming from?

I appologize if this has been stated but I am having a rough time reading evrything.

Are they coming from Klimas, Peterson, Bateman, Erlander, etc. The being screened by Wallit, Gill, and the other?

How are they then going to recruit? Just by online applications?

Thanks
 

anciendaze

Senior Member
Messages
1,841
@panckage

I wasn't attacking anyone here, just illustrating the low level of common thinking in assessing mental health with a little humor. The fact that you can move statements from cartoons to serious medical publications, or vice versa, tells us all something about the state of the art.
 
Unger talks about publication plans in this part of the recent webinar http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...ar-with-dr-unger-sept-2016.46980/#post-766506

Dr Unger said:
Publication plans
Our publication plans, I'm really happy to let you know that the manuscript describing the study design and detail has been accepted by the American Journal of Epidemiology. Now it doesn't sound too exciting that we published the methods, but it's exciting to me because I think having standardized methods and sharing how researchers approach collecting data on this field is really important to, again, move toward standardization and all of the study forms that were used will be available for use by others.

Unfortunately the American Journal of Epidemiology has undergone some changes in their typesetting company and they have a backlog, so it will be four to five months until this actually is viewable, but at least it's our first publication and we're going to rely on this publication so that our other publications can refer to it.

We have submitted abstracts on preliminary results of the studies on cortisol, cognition, exercise, the NK cell pilot in the biorepository to the 2016 International Association of ME/CFS meeting in October.

so this might cover this?