BPS attempts at psychologizing Long Covid

That will change with prolonged exposure to the sort of statements and research poured out by the BPS A picture is worth a thousand words!

 

This article is from last week, but just saw Medscape sharing it on twitter. Am a bit surprised to see this in Medscape, and with no mention of PEM in some long Covid patients. Bolding is mine.

Medscape 'It's Deconditioning, Stupid': Exercise Limitations After COVID-19 Infection Commentary by Aaron B. Holley, MD

Quotes:
What is deconditioning? In lay terms, it's synonymous with being out of shape. In medical terms, it's the process by which human beings lose muscle mass and aerobic capacity following inactivity. The rate at which deconditioning occurs is dependent on a number of factors. Speaking from personal and professional experience, I promise you that it occurs quickly. One hallmark of deconditioning is poor self-awareness and the tendency to attribute symptoms to organ dysfunction rather than lack of fitness.

...

In summary, if your patient was hospitalized for COVID-19, they're deconditioned. The degree and duration of deconditioning will vary by age, length of stay, iatrogenia (like steroids or paralysis), and fitness level prior to admission. Younger, healthier post–COVID-19 outpatients have not been well studied. Deconditioning is not the sole contributor to post–COVID-19 symptoms, but until we learn more about the complex interaction between recovery times and disease effects, it provides a target for treatment. "It's deconditioning, stupid."

 

Well, he is an army medic. What do you expect. They have always been keen on that idea.

 

Bless em

Once they come up with an idea, no matter how absurd, no matter that all the evidence contradicts it, they stick with it

That's dogged determination that is.

The same thing may well be responsible for all the fictional people driving into rivers, as satnav is always right, even when waters coming in through the door seals.

 

Maybe move the little marks around a bit:

'It's Deconditioning' = Stupid

 

reminds me of this
Chalder: It's the fear, stupid.

Code:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPxmpZPpZz8

 

I know lots of people who are deconditioned in the sense that they do not exercise much and know it and they are all aware they should exercise more and do not attribute it to organ dysfunction.

Similarly, the sort of people I know who are active without being athletic don't have much trouble with deconditioning after a fortnight in bed with the flu. After being laid up for a fortnight with the flu, my dad had another two weeks before he could return to work but then he was back to a physical job.

I wonder if the likes of soldiers and athletes are so fit that they are very aware of when it drops. Makes me think of school where people who were fairly good did not bother if their marks went from 76 to 72 but the ones who usually got 99 were pulled up if they got 95.

And maybe soldiers insist they have organ dysfunction if their superiors demand to know why they haven't managed the obstacle course

 

The military probably thinks the condition can be adequately treated with PG Tips.

 

BPS recipe for normalising a genuine physical problem:

Take whatever might be a reasonable complaint of the physically ill, and assert that this “is typical” of whatever your favoured explanation might be! (No justification or evidence required.)

 

Simon Wessely and Esther Crawley spoke at this Spotlight on Long Covid webinar at the Royal Society of Medicine, but it was members only, and apparently the recording was only available for a month, so we may never benefit from the valuable contributions they no doubt made.

https://www.rsm.ac.uk/events/rsm-studios/2020-21/cep68/

Any ideas how it to get hold of it?

Edit: spelling and to add link to their biographies
https://www.rsm.ac.uk/media/5475090/rsm-spotlight-on-long-covid-speaker-biographies.pdf

 

It's similar to the idea I believe I've seen that people with somatic symptom disorder are more likely to focus on physical symptoms and deny a psychological cause, and those things are actually seen as a hallmark of it.

It's not good scientific thinking at all

 

I see this thinking everywhere...in this strange world where logic is turned on its head and effects become causes.

Activity avoidance is related to disability and reduced QOL...duh?! Not being able to do stuff is obviously going to reduce QOL.

 

Another opinion piece on long covid as a cultural illness by Swedish journalist Hanne Kjöller

Postcovid: samma symtom i ny förpackning
https://kvartal.se/artiklar/langtidscovid/

Google Translate, English ("Postcovid: same symptoms in new packaging")

https://twitter.com/user/status/1467945155735048193

 

It's prejudice and bigotry.

They layer a thin veneer of pseudoscience over the top to make it appear more respectable, but when you get down to it, it's still prejudice.

 

Arguing that LC "looks a lot" like "cultural illness" is like marvelling at the fact that the celestial spheres really looked a lot like when you observe the solar system and wow what a coincidence! Which is of course precisely why and how the celestial spheres were invented: to match the observations, not to explain them.

Cultural illness was literally invented as a narrative to match the observations of epidemic outbreaks leading to chronic health problems. Of course it looks a lot like it was built custom-made to it. It's hard to believe that such absurd nonsense is actually published outside of fringe pseudoscientific communities.

 

Ah well, the tweet got deleted. From a mental health nurse, showing a slide of a recent Trudie Chalder talk about mental health in LC. Tagged #mentalhealth and #cbt of course.

So Chalder is still going around "teaching" people about her pseudoscience.

Since it's still in my bookmarks:

Can't find what it is, @theparcproject here should have been a hashtag but there's not much on it: https://twitter.com/search?q=#theparcproject&src=typed_query&f=top.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1468581267423834112