• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of, and finding treatments for, complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia, long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

Stress vulnerability in adolescents with CFS: study investigating HRV and skin conductance responses

D

duncan

Senior Member
Messages
2,240
Assuming these kids have ME/CFS, a significant portion likely have dysautonomia. They brought it to the study. So it would have manifested as unusual readings whether it included a public speech or just standing or involved an exercise bike or...By extention, the results these researchers are reporting could well be just an expected reaction when one factors in a dysfunctional ANS. In effect, the researchers potentially did not demonstrate anything other than a normal stressful reaction in individuals with a broken ANS, and it is entirely logical that ANS metrics would reflect that in a population frequently characterized by malfunctioning ANS.

They should have done physical exercises, too. If so, any implication for a psych component would have been mitigated, or at least put into a proper context. Phrases like chronic stress vulnerability and acute stress would have had as much relevance as they would in persons with congestive heart failure, where patients are at risk from both mental and physical stressors. Context matters

I find these results misleading at best.
 
S

SamanthaJ

Senior Member
Messages
219
Dolphin said:
The speech the individuals with CFS gave was marked lower in quality than the other speeches. The researchers don't mention one likely contributing factor to this: the cognitive impairment in CFS.
Click to expand...
The CFS kids are also much more likely to have missed a lot of school than the asthma kids... It does seem like the researchers devised a task that put the CFS kids at a disadvantage and exacerbated their cognitive and OI symptoms, then concluded that they were disproportionately anxious! Quoting 'anxiety' symptoms that sound exactly like OI! Although, as others have said, the Oxford criteria makes it all rather meaningless anyway.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.