Product Description
Because of the individual and varying symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome, medical guidelines encompassing the needs of every patient simply do not exist. Through proven research and recommendations for future treatment, Disability and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Clinical, Legal, and Patient Perspectives discusses the difficult subject of how to diagnose disability in chronic fatigue syndrome patients, how to determine the severity of a patient’s disability, and how new disability guidelines would make more chronic fatigue patients eligible to apply for disability benefits. From this information, you will gain a clearer understanding of chronic fatigue syndrome, enabling you to more accurately assess a patient’s condition or decide if your client is eligible for disability benefits.

Essential for clinicians, lawyers, patients, and medical insurers, Disability and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome provides an outline of disability guidelines established by the Social Security Administration (SSA), the Veterans’Administration, and the American Medical Association, as well as federal guidelines. While gaining information on the different types of disability insurance available to chronic fatigue patients, such as the Long Term Disability (LTD) policy, you will also learn how standard procedures such as psychiatric evaluation, neuropsychological testing, and physical capacity measurement can both help and hinder the process of determining disability in a patient. In addition, Disability and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome provides insight into:

• the symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome, such as inability to work and level of stamina, in accordance with medical and legal definitions
• disability guidelines set by the SSA
• how patients’varying symptoms and conflicting findings affect disability diagnosis in chronic fatigue syndrome patients by SSA standards
• plans by the Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome (CFIDS) Association of America to work with the SSA concerning strategies to dissolve barriers to Social Security Disability Income Benefits for patients and to advocate for up-to-date information on CFIDS in the SSA’s Listing of Impairments.
• tips on applying for SSA benefits
• claims that insurance companies have used misleading surveillance videos and fraud to discontinue disability benefits to patients in need of coverage
  
  Since the Social Security Administration does not currently consider a CFIDS diagnosis enough to win a disability claim, Disability and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome also contains many recommendations for improving federal disability guidelines, such as using results from functional evaluations, neuropsychological testing, and exercise endurance testing as evidence of impairment. For less severe cases, this book provides you with suggestions for rehabilitation of CFS patients before disability claims are made, including patient training and education, dependency counseling, muscular conditioning, and occupational therapy. Whether you are a patient, clinician, lawyer, or medical insurer, Disability and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome will guide you through the complex issues surrounding disability and this intricate disease.

Disability and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Clinical, Legal and Patient Perspectives

Product Description
A handy reference guide to living with fatigue!

Medical Etiology, Assessment, and Treatment of Chronic Fatigue and Malaise: Clinical Differentiation and Intervention is the single reference source you need for vital information on the fatiguing illnesses that affect more than 800,000 Americans. Written by one of the foremost experts in the field, the book is a comprehensive guide to the debilitating, and often misunderstood, phenomenon of fatigue, examining its multiple causes and treatments. Through a detailed history of chronic fatigue and a look at the factors that influence evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment, the book gives you immediate access to the answers you—and your patients—have been searching for.

Practical and easy-to-use, Medical Etiology, Assessment, and Treatment of Chronic Fatigue and Malaise: Clinical Differentiation and Intervention saves you the time and trouble of sorting through extensive research findings for the information you need on the many contexts and consequences of fatigue. The book examines how fatigue is defined and measured and how it relates to autoimmune diseases, cancer, neurological disease, and a variety of other pathologies. You’ll also get immediate access to the latest related findings in cardiovascular medicine, epidemiology, infectious diseases, endocrinology, psychology, and psychiatry that served as the basis for research and therapeutic interventions.

Medical Etiology, Assessment, and Treatment of Chronic Fatigue and Malaise: Clinical Differentiation and Intervention provides valuable information on:

• complicating factors in the diagnosis and treatment of fatigue
• symptom distress and quality of life
• body defense factors
• fatigue perception and severity
• chronic fatigue syndrome
• fatigue and the environment
• predisposed and perpetuating factors for chronic fatiguing illnesses
• cytokines
• endocrine factors
• and much more!

Medical Etiology, Assessment, and Treatment of Chronic Fatigue and Malaise: Clinical Differentiation and Intervention also includes tables, figures, and references. This accessible reference guide is crucial for anyone suffering the effects of this baffling disorder and for the healthcare professionals they depend on.

Medical Etiology, Assessment, and Treatment of Chronic Fatigue and Malaise: Clinical Differentiation and Intervention

Product Description

A guide for practitioners, scientists, and patients, Clinical Management of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome provides an insightful overview of current clinical management of CFS and guidelines for dealing with the disease and its compounding issues. It also provides, especially for patients, an objective framework in which they can approach the confusing psychological and physical ramifications of the disease so that they may sort through possibly misleading information on current treatments.

CFS has been the focus of an increasing number of research investigators seeking to unravel the enigmatic interrelationship of immunologic, neurologic, endocrinologic, and psychologic abnormalities associated with this debilitating disorder. Because many practical issues have been underestimated by the medical community, and considerable misinformation exists regarding the appropriate evaluation and management of the CFS patient, the American Association for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (AACFS) held its first clinical conference to address this problem, the results of which are presented in this book. Each chapter, based on material presented at the October 1994 conference has been completely updated and revised during a peer review process, making Clinical Management of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome a useful and up-to-date guide for practitioners and scientists, as well as patients.

Despite the potential of nervous system functional assessments, the diagnosis of CFS continues to be a major problem because a consensus diagnostic tool is lacking, and the monitoring of the disorder is based primarily on patient report. Moreover, dealing with the financial aspects of CFS continues to be a major problem for patients, so professionals with experience dealing with insurance companies explored this issue, as well as ways in which CFS could be considered in a broader perspective of health care, particularly focusing on governmental involvement.

The chapters provide an insightful overview of current clinical management of patients and guidelines for dealing with the disease and its complicating issues. General topics of relevance covered in the book’s chapters include

• a review of advances in basic science


• neurocognitive dysfunction


• diagnostic issues


• use of alternative/complementary medicine


• cognitive behavioral and rehabilitative therapies


• financial issues


• advances in governmental role


• women’s issues

In this book, practitioners and scientists in the field and patients living with CFS have a thorough resource on current clinical and patient management of the disease.

Clinical Management of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Clinical Conference, American Association of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome