Why is it that when people do PhD's in this stuff they fill their sentences with jargon. What on earth is metacognitive treatment, and what is 'salutogenesis'? 'In this proposal, we will summarize the actual scientific knowledge on theories on MUPS'. That should be a short session. The clue is in the name 'medically unexplained'
The Swedish Social Insurance Agency (Försäkringskassan) has published a social insurance report on rejected sickness benefit claims (sjukpenning): Rejected sickness cash benefit claims – A register study of sickness insurance decisions on initial claims and claims after day 180 in the rehabilitation chain. Original title in Swedish: Skillnader i avslag för sjukpenning mellan olika grupper En registerstudie om avslagsbeslut på initial ansökan och efter dag 180 i rehabiliteringskedjan (Socialförsäkringsrapport 2022:1) https://www.forsakringskassan.se/wp...OD=AJPERES&CVID=&CACHE=NONE&CONTENTCACHE=NONE Among physical diseases, fibromyalgia and ME/CFS are the ones where initial rejection of a claim for sickness benefit is most common: Fibromyalgia: 6.1% ME/CFS: 5.7% For comparison purposes: Average percent of rejections across all diagnoses: 3.2%. Post infectious syndrome after covid-19: 1%. Exhaustion disorder 5.4% (“utmattningssyndrom”, classified as a psychiatric diagnosis) Psychiatric diagnoses on average: 5.1%. For comparison purposes, here are some numbers from between January 2018 and June 2021 (RR = relative risk for rejection): Initial rejection ME/CFS: 4601 cases, RR 1.76 Post infectious syndrome after covid-19: 5953 cases, RR 0.32 Fibromyalgia: 4173 cases, RR 1,87 Exhaustion disorder: 84 536 cases, RR 1,65 Rejection after 180 days ME/CFS: 639 cases, RR 1.09 Post infectious syndrome after covid-19: 75 cases, RR (0,98) Fibromyalgia: 1300 cases, RR 1,28 Exhaustion disorder: 38 901 cases, RR 1,14 Here’s the first part of the English summary (read more in the report linked above): The concluding remarks say “more complex diagnoses in terms of insurance medicine, where health care providers struggle to present objective disease findings and to establish a solid connection between disease and reduced work ability, have higher rejection rates.” Here’s a news article on the same: Bostadsort och sjukdom spelar stor roll för avslag på sjukpenning https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/stora-skillnader-i-avslag-for-sjukpenning “Försäkringskassan's requirement for [objective] examination findings in medical certificates has now been removed.” This is not true in practice, it’s still being used in some rejections of claims by pwME, and in some rejections of appeals in the administrative courts too.
Trisha Greenhalgh is one of the keynote speakers Professor Wilkinson from the Mayo clinic will talk about how to establish trust in 10 minutes. The talk is titled "Almost as good as continuity: Establishing a trusting relationship in 10 minutes" Quote: We have developed a framework for a structured approach to categorizing and evaluating symptoms, which helps establish trusting relationships in the first minutes of a visit. Using irritable bowel syndrome as an example, we will outline the 9 essential steps for patients to begin to understand and accept the biopsychosocial aspects of chronic conditions, to be confident that the evaluation has been adequate to rule out other organic conditions while minimizing unnecessary testing, to accept the limitations of therapy and incremental improvements of symptoms, and to engage in effective self-management.
How to fool patients in 10 minutes. These people should be ashamed of themselves. Trust in medical care needs to be earned by genuine listening, proper investigation and effective support and treatment.
More news on Radio Sweden (2 minutes, in Swedish) Ny rapport: Oftare avslag för fibromyalgi och kroniskt trötthetssyndrom https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/ny...for-fibromyalgi-och-kroniskt-trotthetssyndrom
Repeatedly rejected benefit claims is such a massive problem for pwME in Sweden, I cannot stress this enough. So many of us, myself included, have had our lives completely destroyed by them, including severe permanent deterioration from having to over-exert ourselves by appealing to the administrative courts year after year after year... My heart goes out to all my pwME friends who are currently in the middle of it If you haven't already, do check out Niklas Altermark's work, including his nonfiction book Avslagsmaskinen: byråkrati och avhumanisering i svensk sjukförsäkring ("The rejection machine: bureaucracy and dehumanisation in Swedish health insurance"). It was published in 2020. Altermark is an associate professor of welfare politics at Lund University, Sweden. Altermark interviewed a large number of people for his book. About half of the pwME he interviewed described having suicidal thoughts, not because of the illness itself, but in relation to the social security system and the stress of rejected benefit claims. Altermark announced earlier today that a follow-up article has been accepted for publication "What happens to sick people who are under so much pressure that they completely lose faith in the future?"
They cannot seem to understand that trust comes from truth, that there is no way for people to trust them if they lie to them about things they know. The whole reason people go see medical professionals is that they expect the truth, remove that and you break the premise of the entire system. Physicians aren't supposed to establish trust because the credibility of medicine comes from it being informed by science, from being true, as best we can tell so far. It's science, self-correcting truth, that makes medicine credible. Lying to patients completely destroys not just trust in any one interaction but destroys the credibility of the entire profession. To put lying into a framework is still lying, I don't understand how they keep believing that it's the way the lies are told, not the actual lies. And there they are telling themselves each other better ways to lie to people as a way to build trust, unable to understand why they aren't trusted precisely because they're lying and doing a very poor job of it. Amazing.
I have written a comment to the report on my blog. ”Okay. I have tried to read and understand the Swedish Social Insurance Agency's new report on differences in refusal of sickness benefit, or at least parts of it. Link to the report can be found at the bottom of this post. I was going to share some thoughts with you because there are both things that do not surprise me but also things I can not understand at all. What I have chosen to focus on are the sections that deal with rejection in relation to the main sick leave diagnosis.” Here is a link to a Google translated version. I hope it works: https://mitteremitage-wordpress-com..._sl=sv&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=sv&_x_tr_pto=wapp
The Swedish Parliament has supported a motion to ask the Government to investigate how a National Competence Centre for ME/CFS can be established, according to Sten Helmfrid on Twitter:
The motion states: The report (betänkandet) by the Social Affairs Committee (Socialutskottet) states: The decision states: The same report recommended that the Parliament should say 'no' to a centre of excellence for post-covid (motion 2021/22:3697 and motion 2021/22:3809), and the Parliament did vote against it. They also voted on a number of other motions regarding healthcare equality, which they supported only in part. Personally, I'm very disappointed that they didn't support the motion about improved (medical) home healthcare. It's an especially important issue for people with severe and very severe ME.
Google translated Chief physician receives huge sums for online services for people with functional disorders Chief physician Rikke Hinge Carlsson from the Center for Complex Symptoms at Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg Hospital receives DKK 5.7 million from the Trygfonden to develop an online offer for people with functional disorders and persistent symptoms. https://medicinsketidsskrifter.dk/n...bud-til-mennesker-med-funktionel-lidelse.html Source:
More Google translation: What google translates as "not a treatment offer, but a coping offer that can supplement treatment" is "ikke et behandlingstilbud, men et mestringstilbud der kan supplere behandling ved egen læge" in the original. Scandinavians will recognise this as the same sort of language used by LP proponents. While "not a treatment offer, but a coping offer that can supplement treatment" sounds reasonable enough at first glance I'm not confident it means what it seems to mean, never mind what 'treatment' it's supposed to supplement. At any rate DDK 5.7million is an awful lot of money for "a coping offer".
So their argument is that 10-15% of the population can be diagnosed with that. Not that they are. That they can. So they make their client base from a hypothetical guesstimate, based on the flimsiest possible research where the conclusion is simply a default. And they're pushing a treatment that, maybe, can help some. Generically, just "help" as a vague idea. But it's not actually a treatment and they can't show any evidence that it makes any difference. And they got money for this. Frankly compared to this Theranos was honest and transparent. This fraud is completely over the top insane.
Anns dotter är svårt sjuk i ME/CFS: ”En riktigt dålig dag kan hon inte prata” https://amp.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/v...art-sjuk-i-me-en-dalig-dag-kan-hon-inte-prata
(Not ME) This thesis and the studies it is based on are getting headlines in Sweden today: Cancerpatienter smyger med alternativbehandling https://tt.omni.se/cancerpatienter-smyger-med-alternativbehandling/a/9KPz0d Cam = complementary and alternative medicine. An interview with the researcher about her work: Vården sällan samtalspartner om komplementärmedicin för cancerpatienter https://www.umu.se/nyheter/varden-s...ementarmedicin-for-cancerpatienter-_11610584/
Robin Söderling tar timeout: ”Hälsoskäl” https://www.dn.se/sport/robin-soderling-tar-timeout-halsoskal/
