Reuters
Datum:  28 oktober 2009
Auteur: David Douglas


Chronic fatigue and encephalopathy impair memory and attention in children

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Oct 28 - Children with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) or myalgic encephalopathy (ME) have memory and attention problems that might help explain their educational difficulties, UK researchers report in the October issue of Archives of Disease in Childhood.

Andrew Haig-Ferguson of the Center for Child and Adolescent Health, Bristol, and colleagues observe that CFS/ME - "a generalized fatigue persisting after routine tests and investigations have failed to identify an... underlying cause" - is "probably the largest single cause of long-term school absence in the UK."

To better understand the problems these children face, researchers visited 20 young patients, aged 8 to 16 years, in their homes and administered a battery of tests. The children, their parents, and teachers were also asked about the children's attention and memory problems.

All described problems with focused attention, sustained attention, recall and stress. Moreover, compared to a normative mean score of 10 on psychometric tests, the children's scores for sustained attention were 8.1; switching attention, 7.5; divided attention, 6.9; and immediate recall, 8.7.

"These problems are particularly likely to affect children with CFS/ME when they are trying to do two tasks at the same time such as doing their homework and keeping track of time," the investigators point out.

Commenting on the findings, Haig-Ferguson told Reuters Health that "although many children with CFS/ME report that they have difficulties with their memory and attention, this is the first study to identify the specific areas of memory and attention that are problematic for
this group."

"The implications," he concluded, "are to identify practical guidance to assist children with CFS/ME who are experiencing these problems."

Arch Dis Child 2009;94:757-762.

(c) 2009 Reuters

Source:  http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/711482