The biopsychosocial briefly model claims that ME/CFS is an illness caused by wrong beliefs about ones state with a form of feedback loop feeding into deconditioing which in turn perpetuates these beliefs (similarly the intramural study places a central focus on deconditioning).
If a patient was to develop Alzheimers and/or Dementia (or perhaps a different neurological condition with similar ramifications) they ought to forget these illness beliefs sooner or later and as such their ME/CFS would have to resolve eventually.
Thus to prove that ME/CFS is not psychological (at least not in all cases) it would suffice to find a patient with ME/CFS that goes on to develop Dementia but who still describes the same symptoms of ME/CFS.
Do these lines of thought involve any fundamental flaws?
On the other hand finding a patient whose ME/CFS is cured by Dementia would not be sufficient to prove that ME/CFS is a BPS condition as Dementia compromises physical processes which could influence biological processes in ME/CFS.
Of course there would be rather severe complications in practice such as dementia influencing activity patterns, patients not being able to recall their reactions to exertion, dementia patients developing comorbidities that mimic ME/CFS or comorbidities going unnoticed or that become harder to disentangle due to Dementia, or that the thoughts that influence beliefs in ME/CFS would only be affected by late stage dementia etc. In particular something like the Canadian Consensus criteria will become harder to verify due to the possibility of false positives (sleep dysfunction, impairment of concentration and short-term memory consolidation, disorientation, fatigue, weight change, Loss of adaptability and worsening symptoms with stress and many more may all be symptoms of Dementia) combined with patients not being able to recall and/or comprehend their situation.
Some might even try to argue that dementia would somehow leave subconscious ME/CFS beliefs untouched, but I think such explanations will be running into muddy water rather quickly.
If a patient was to develop Alzheimers and/or Dementia (or perhaps a different neurological condition with similar ramifications) they ought to forget these illness beliefs sooner or later and as such their ME/CFS would have to resolve eventually.
Thus to prove that ME/CFS is not psychological (at least not in all cases) it would suffice to find a patient with ME/CFS that goes on to develop Dementia but who still describes the same symptoms of ME/CFS.
Do these lines of thought involve any fundamental flaws?
On the other hand finding a patient whose ME/CFS is cured by Dementia would not be sufficient to prove that ME/CFS is a BPS condition as Dementia compromises physical processes which could influence biological processes in ME/CFS.
Of course there would be rather severe complications in practice such as dementia influencing activity patterns, patients not being able to recall their reactions to exertion, dementia patients developing comorbidities that mimic ME/CFS or comorbidities going unnoticed or that become harder to disentangle due to Dementia, or that the thoughts that influence beliefs in ME/CFS would only be affected by late stage dementia etc. In particular something like the Canadian Consensus criteria will become harder to verify due to the possibility of false positives (sleep dysfunction, impairment of concentration and short-term memory consolidation, disorientation, fatigue, weight change, Loss of adaptability and worsening symptoms with stress and many more may all be symptoms of Dementia) combined with patients not being able to recall and/or comprehend their situation.
Some might even try to argue that dementia would somehow leave subconscious ME/CFS beliefs untouched, but I think such explanations will be running into muddy water rather quickly.
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