Doctors are getting a new way to diagnose chronic fatigue syndrome — and influential government advisers say it’s time to replace that hated name, too, to show it’s a real and debilitating disease.
The Institute of Medicine on Tuesday called on doctors to do a better job diagnosing an illness that may affect up to 2.5 million Americans, and it set five main symptoms as the criteria.
And the IOM’s choice of a new name — Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease, or SEID — reflects a core symptom, that exertion can wipe patients out.
“This is not a figment of their imagination,” said Dr. Ellen Wright Clayton of Vanderbilt University’s Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society, who chaired the IOM panel. “These patients have real symptoms. They deserve real care.”
Here are some things to know about the disorder:
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WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
The IOM advised the government to develop a toolkit to help doctors diagnose the disease, and to make sure the disorder is assigned a specific medical billing code. The government is reviewing the recommendations.
Committee members are spreading the word about the diagnostic criteria in medical journals, and the institute’s web site, www.iom.edu , eventually will post a physician guide.
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