Chronic Fatigue Study

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Study

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) remains a perplexing condition with no specific diagnostic tests or known cure.

The Centre for Rural and Remote Area Health was approached by Bond University to assist them with the rural component of this study  of which the major part has been funded by a Queensland Smart State Grant.

At present diagnosing CFS is a lengthy process, which costs the community millions of dollars a year in consultations, treatments and lost work hours with diagnosis often drawn-out and frustrating for sufferers because of a lack of suitable pathology tests.

CFS can manifest itself in dozens of different ways, through depression, joint pains and sleep dysfunction just to name a few. At the moment diagnosis involves a list of criteria which is matched off against a patient’s symptoms to see if they can be diagnosed.  'This research could potentially do away with that, whereby a patient would be required to only undergo a blood test, which will lead to a quicker diagnosis.

This study commenced in 2010 and will be carried out over a 3 year period.

Project Team members CRRAH:  Prof Don Gorman, Dr Rob Eley.