Author: Caoimhe Mcloughlin. Stigma in persistent somatic symptoms and functional disorders (PSS/FD) has been around for centuries. In earlier times, individuals with these symptoms were accused of moral failure or spiritual possession – much like other conditions that seemed hard to understand, such as epilepsy or tuberculosis. In more recent times, individuals with functional symptoms […]
‘Symptoms’ as a generic phenomenon in primary care
Author: Asma Chaabouni. Symptoms such as pain, fatigue and constipation are part of everyday sensation. For several reasons such as symptoms severity and symptoms persistence, 3.1% of people experiencing symptoms request primary care assistance within 6 weeks of the onset of the symptoms [1]. When these symptoms could not be attributed to well-established diseases, a […]
What are the major factors influencing persistent somatic symptoms, and what does this mean for future care provision?
Author: Nick Mamo. Persistent somatic symptoms (PSS) are surprisingly common – as much as 33% of individuals in primary care, and 53% in specialty clinics experience PSS. The care trajectory for these individuals with PSS can be complex, and outcomes can be quite poor. It is becoming increasingly evident that a big part of the […]
Understanding ‘brain fog’: insights from Reddit discussions
Author: Verónica Cabreira. The term ‘brain fog’ has entered our daily vocabulary and gained significant attention in the context of persistent symptoms of long COVID (Teodoro et al., 2023), but it is agnostic regarding its cause, pathophysiology, and even characteristics of symptom experience. The term was primarily coined by patients, and even though it is […]
Bodily Distress Syndrome (BDS) as a new research concept for adolescents with functional somatic symptoms
Author: Elske Hogendoorn. Functional somatic symptoms are physical symptoms that cannot be fully attributed to a biomedical cause and may arise in the absence or presence of a chronic medical disease. Persistent functional somatic symptoms occur in various medical domains and are given a variety of diagnostic classifications, such as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome or […]
Functional cognitive disorders: underrecognised and undertreated?
In the daily clinical practice of diagnosing and treating patients with persistent somatic symptoms (PSS), we see many patients with cognitive symptoms, such as memory problems or difficulty concentrating. Some patients experience a lack of mental clarity, also referred to as ‘brain fog’.
Death anxiety as a potential cause or consequence of PSS
Mortality awareness makes us vulnerable and can lead to a number of psychological defences. Fear of death can be simultaneously conscious and unconscious within the same person. Ten per cent of the general population has an above-average fear of dying and four per cent experiences severe fear of death. Despite these numbers, primary death anxiety has not yet been considered as a leading cause in the development of psychological disorders; the bulk of the literature on the subject has been philosophical and psychological in nature. Clinical research into the association between death anxiety and other symptoms or diseases is scarce and has mainly focused on terminally ill patients. Several years ago, a review was published describing the role of death anxiety in the development of disorders like anxiety, depression and obsessive compulsiveness (Iverach e.a., 2014).