| Medical Professionals
An Important Role
As a health care professional, you can play an important role in the fight against chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). By becoming knowledgeable about the diagnosis and management of (CFS) and staying abreast of new information, you can provide a higher level of care to your patients and you can be on the cutting edge of addressing a challenging public health concern.
CFS affects more than 1 million Americans, making it one of the nation's most prevalent, yet misunderstood, chronic illnesses. Most of these nearly one million patients go undiagnosed, drifting from one health care provider to another until many drop out of the health care system altogether; either out of frustration and hopelessness or due to dwindling financial resources. Preliminary studies indicate that for CFS, as with other chronic conditions, early detection, diagnosis and treatment yield better health outcomes. Improving patient care through the education of health care professionals has become a major initiative for the CFIDS Association of America.
CFS Toolkit for Health Care Professionals
In conjunction with the national public awareness campaign the Association and CDC have developed this easy-to-follow Toolkit. You can download the Provider Toolkit here or find more information at http://www.cfids.org/sparkcfs/health-professionals.asp.
Provider Education Project
“Over the past 7 years, the CFIDS Association of America has teamed with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes for Health (NIH), medical professional organizations, universities and hospitals nation wide to bring evidence-based information on chronic fatigue syndrome to healthcare professionals and medical students.
The core mission of the CFIDS Association’s project is to give healthcare professionals the tools they need to diagnose and manage CFS, resulting in improved patient care. Through initiatives including Grand Rounds presentations, attendance at medical professional meetings and distribution of educational materials, the Association has put information on CFS into the hands of thousands of healthcare professionals.
Visit the CFS Provider Education Project micro site to download fact sheets, read the latest in CFS research and to learn more about caring for people with CFS.
Diagnosis
Understand the basic process of making a diagnosis of CFS, which involves excluding other possible causes for symptoms.
Treatment
Learn how to systemically approach the challenge of symptom management in CFS. Click here for a quick treatment overview.
Research
Keeping up to date on the latest in CFS research used to be a fairly simple task, as a decade ago very few investigators were studying CFS. Now the research being conducted spans the globe and many different disciplines. View the annotated bibliography to stay on top of what's new.
Available Resources
Much of the information created for this Web-site was intended for use by professionals and consumers. However, there is some special content of primary interest to those working in medical and research fields.
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1994 International Case Definition: The CFS case definition is used by researchers in an attempt to select more uniform patient populations for CFS studies; however, because no clinical definition exists at the present time, it is often loosely applied by clinicians to make the diagnosis of CFS.
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1999 DePaul University Prevalence Study: Building on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other research institutions, this DePaul group found that about 800,000 Americans would meet the very stringent case definition for CFS, although only 10% would have been properly diagnosed. The research group also identified that women and African-Americans and Hispanics were at a greater risk for developing the illness than men, whites or Asian-Americans.
Related Information
The following list provides resources for health care providers who want information about chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). The CFIDS Association of America serves as a resource for health care providers, patients and other persons seeking information about CFS, including the following
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1994 International Work Group Case Definition
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Reprints of research articles and other related CFS materials, including a provider packet
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The CFS Research Review This semi-annual publication is available free-of-charge to health care professionals by contacting the Association
Additional Resources
The additional resources list can be viewed to find contact information for the Federal Government, disability benefits, national organizations and health professional organizations.
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