Which solution to functional somatic disorder: The ACSEPT program 2024

Abstract

Functional somatic disorder (FSD) is a prevalent disorder that can be severely disabling for the patient and is associated with major health costs. There are few formalized care programs for these disorders in the country, and their management encounters various difficulties, both in the diagnosis and its announcement and the treatment. Cognitive-behavioural and emotional therapy (CBT) is the standard on psychiatry care, and its efficacy has been demonstrated through several randomised controlled studies on the intensity of physical and psychological symptoms.

At Lille's University Hospital Center, we have established the "ACSEPT" care pathway for TSF management which consists of a psychiatric consultation followed by an individual referral, including a treatment using repeated transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) or the integration of a CBT-based psychoeducation group. This group had the particularity of caring for all patients presenting FSD regardless of the associated physical symptoms. Educating medical professionals and conducting FSD research were other goals of ACSEPT.

ACSEPT allows an improvement in the care offered to these patients with a defined orientation and interdisciplinary, early, organized cares that are repeatable. Our goal is to study the effectiveness of these different interventions in subsequent studies, to continue the development of ACSEPT and to be able to distribute this intervention at the regional level to establish a clear care program allowing early management of these patients.

Paywall, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S001370062400191X

 

Aside from language, this feels like it's written by a child. The ideas and perspectives are very childish. So very very small. And very marketing-oriented.

I guess that's the new way of doing things in evidence-based medicine: do it for a while, then pretend to test it. At this point you'll have suckered in enough sunk cost that no one will want to admit it was a bad idea, too embarrassing. Even though it's the exact same as old stuff that never worked. They're describing this as something that already works. Why bother testing, then? All for show, all to pretend. They're even saying that, before they get around to testing it, that they're preparing to distribute it at a regional level. Which has been common for a while.

At least in the saying about rearranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic, everyone on the ship understood it was sinking. Not here. Zero self-awareness from people who 'teach' awareness.

They claim that the conversion disorder affects 10% of the general population and is involved in 20% of primary care consults:

Defined strictly as absence of accepted evidence. Oh, great, they specifically name Long Covid. Well, they use a different name but whatever.

 

You just described psychosomatic medicine

 

They can't acsept that.