Posted by Phillipa on December 29, 2008, at 19:49:26
Since have chronic but been treated still test positive thought this small study on chronic lymes interest especially since it takes various forms lymes throughout the world. Phillipa
Chronic Lyme Disease Patients Often Have Comorbid Psychiatric Illness
Information from Industry.
By Megan RauscherNEW YORK (Reuters Health) Dec 26 - Psychiatric comorbidity and other psychological factors distinguish chronic Lyme disease patients from other medical patients commonly seen in Lyme disease referral centers, researchers report.
They also found that psychiatric comorbid illnesses correlate with poor functional outcomes in chronic Lyme disease patients.
Dr. Afton L. Hassett from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, and colleagues studied a total of 159 patients seen at an academic Lyme disease referral center. Their findings appear in the December 15 issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism (Arthritis Care and Research).
They evaluated the prevalence and role of psychiatric comorbidity and psychological factors in 77 patients with chronic Lyme disease and 82 (comparison) patients without chronic Lyme disease -- either recovered from Lyme disease or with Lyme-like symptoms explained by other conditions.
After adjusting for age and sex, the investigators found that depressive and anxiety disorders were more prevalent in chronic Lyme disease patients than in comparison patients (odds ratio, 2.64; p = 0.02).
The chronic Lyme disease patients also displayed a greater tendency to catastrophize pain, higher levels of negative affect, lower levels of positive affect, a greater number of symptoms and worse functioning.
"The results, related to the prevalence of depression and anxiety and the powerful role of psychological variables (like catastrophizing and negative affect) in functional outcomes, were striking and more pronounced than we expected," Dr. Hassett noted in comments to Reuters Health.
"This is not to say that patients' symptoms are purely psychological, because in most cases they are not, but it is clear that depression and anxiety are common in this and many medical populations and need to be treated," he added.
It was not evident from the study whether depression and/or anxiety came before the physical symptoms or resulted from symptom chronicity and decreased quality of life, Dr. Hassett explained.
He and his colleagues also found that almost 47% of the chronic Lyme disease patients qualified for a diagnosis of fibromyalgia. "Sleep disturbance is common in most patients with fibromyalgia and this appeared to be the case in many of our chronic Lyme disease subjects," Dr. Hassett mentioned. "Often detecting and treating the sleep problems can result in significant symptomatic improvement," he added.
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