Fatigue Persists Over Time Among MS Patients; Fatigue Related To Depression Not Disability
Among some patients with multiple sclerosis, fatigue appears to persist over time but appears to be related to mood symptoms of depression and not to disability, a trial published by the Journal of Neurology suggests.
In the study, researchers sought to evaluate changes in fatigue over time and also to determine the relationship between fatigue changes and changes in disability or depression. A total of 227 MS patients were assessed with the Modified Fatigue Impact Scale, the Fatigue Severity Scale, the Expanded Disability Status Scale, and a measure of depression. All participants were evaluated at the start of the trial and then an average of 18 months later.
The results demonstrated that nearly 87 percent of the patients who were fatigued at the beginning of the study continued to experience fatigue at follow-up. Twenty-five percent of those who were not fatigued at the start of the trial had become fatigued by the follow-up assessment.
The investigators also found a relationship between scores on the depression measure and fatigue scores. For example, as depression scores increased, the fatigue scores also increased.
Furthermore, an increase in depression scores was the factor that best predicted the increase in fatigue over time.
However, changes in disability did not appear to affect fatigue.
The authors did not observe differences in the increase of fatigue between patients with or without disability progression during the follow-up phase. No difference was seen between fatigue changes among those with and without relapses.
"Fatigue in MS persists over time," the authors concluded.
"Changes in mood status but not in disability are related to changes in fatigue in MS patients."
A complimentary medical news service provided by Teva Neuroscience, this news service has been developed independently and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Teva Neuroscience. MS Update is a current news service provided by VerusMed, An Evolution of Faxwatch. The staff of medical writers at VerusMed independently summarize and abstract the most current articles on subjects in multiple sclerosis from the major peer-reviewed medical publications, such as Annals of Neurology, JAMA, New England Journal of Medicine and Journal of Neurology. In all cases, VerusMed cites the original source of its material.