Van Engelen, B G M, Kalkman, J S, Schillings, M L et al. · Nederlands tijdschrift voor geneeskunde · 2004
Fatigue is a common symptom in many diseases, including neuromuscular disorders like post-polio syndrome and myasthenia gravis. This review found that about 64% of neuromuscular patients experience severe fatigue—a rate similar to multiple sclerosis patients. The authors suggest that using reliable measurement tools and combining different medical specialties could help researchers understand why fatigue happens and develop better treatments.
This review validates that severe fatigue in neuromuscular diseases deserves clinical and research attention comparable to MS, potentially increasing recognition and study of fatigue mechanisms in conditions like post-polio syndrome. For ME/CFS research, it supports the concept that reliable multidisciplinary assessment combining psychology, neurology, and neurophysiology is necessary to understand chronic fatigue pathophysiology across disease categories.
This review does not establish causality or specific pathophysiological mechanisms of fatigue; it identifies prevalence rates and proposes future research directions. It does not provide original empirical data distinguishing between fatigue in neuromuscular disease and ME/CFS, nor does it demonstrate which assessment or treatment approaches are most effective.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
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