Danish medical journal
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We have created a mindfulness approach to treat patients who experience multiple, persistent, and disabling physical symptoms that cannot be explained by a well-defined medical or surgical condition. Randomized controlled trials in this area are few, and research is hampered by the lack of clear definitions. Bodily distress syndrome (BDS) or bodily stress is an empirically defined definition unifying various conditions such as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and somatization disorder. ⋯ Five and ten years before their inclusion, the BDS patients were less self-supporting than an age-, gender- and ethnicity-matched population control group; the BDS patients accumulated more weeks of sickness benefit and unemployment. Thus, the included BDS patients may have been ill and in high risk for a social decline five and ten years before they received a proper diagnosis and treatment. In conclusion, the social and economic consequences of BDS are significant and mindfulness therapy may have a potential to significantly improve function, quality of life and symptoms, prevent a social decline, and reduce societal costs.
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Danish medical journal · Nov 2012
ReviewImpaired physical function, loss of muscle mass and assessment of biomechanical properties in critical ill patients.
Intensive care unit (ICU) admission is associated with muscle weakness and ICU survivors report sustained limitation of physical capacity for years after discharge. Limited information is available on the underlying biomechanical properties responsible for this muscle function impairment. ⋯ Despite the obvious clinical significance of muscle atrophy for the functional impairment observed in ICU survivors, no preventive therapies have been identified as yet. The overall aim of the present dissertation is to characterize aspects of physical function and biomechanical properties in ICU patients and to provide new insights into ICU-induced muscle wasting and the underlying biomechanical mechanisms responsible for the residual impairment of physical function in ICU survivors.