Fibromyalgia Syndrome

She is oriented x3, alert, cooperative. Good short-term, long-term, and intermediate memory. No aphasia. Normal fund of knowledge. Normal attention and concentration.

The claimant has a past medical history significant for fibromyalgia, fatigue, arthritis, chronic pain, joint pain, leg pain, frequent urination, and swelling.

Fibromyalgia has been described as a full-body migraine. Another common explanation is to compare everyday life with FMS as being similar to the aches and pains associated with a severe

CMOP-E shows the connection of the person and environment through participation in occupation. (Murnane, 2013). The person comprise of three performance components: cognition; physical and affection with spirituality as the core of the person (Turpin & Iwama, 2011). Dish washing requires sequencing, counting and attention which enable the person to perform the task in a logical manner (Clark, 2014). A cognitive barrier includes people who experience fibromyalgia may have difficulty in everyday attention, sequencing and episodic memory as this could prolonged dishwashing activity (Glass, 2007). A cognitive enabler is Ruby was able to remember how to operate the dishwasher and understand safety procedures as her memory is not affected.

The author continues to demonstrate how the placebo effect works by comparing it to the famous biological study by Ivan Pavlov. In Pavlov’s experiment, dogs are conditioned to respond to a specific stimulus and eventually begin to respond to the same stimulus in the same way all the time. Bjerklie explains that, “as far as the placebo effect is concerned, we may as well be those impressionable canines.” What Bjerklie means is that the human mind has the ability to be conditioned to expect certain outcomes. The placebo effect builds on the human minds ability to be conditioned and an individual’s faith in the healthcare providers it choses to visit. Overtime the human mind has come to believe that if given a medication that is suppose to have a positive effect on a specific pathology, it will in fact have an positive effect.

Fibromyalgia is hard to diagnose because there is not one definitive test that gives you a certain diagnosis (Smith, 2015). A detailed physical examination is the best way to diagnose fibromyalgia, symptoms that the patient will exhibit are chronic muscle pain, decreased pain threshold, tender points, incapacitating fatigue, insomnia, depression, and anxiety (Smith, 2015). Additionally, there are multiple symptoms if the patient is truly experiencing fibromyalgia. The blood test that helps rule out rheumatoid arthritis and lupus is FM/a blood test (Smith, 2015). After ruling out other serious disorders that have the same symptoms, the diagnosis for fibromyalgia includes pain in all four

Dzevdet Smajlovic, professor from the Department of Neurology at the University of Tuzla in Bosnia stated that

     Recent studies show that this syndrome may be associated with changing craniofacial and skeletal muscle metabolism, such as blood flow, which causes the chronic fatigue and severe weakness. Another hypothesis is that an infectious trauma to the body, such as a virus, triggers the illness. However, with this syndrome being new, no specific virus has been identified. There is though a plot study that shows that there is possible inherited tendency toward the disease. This disease/syndrome has increased

According to the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases the word “fibromyalgia” comes from the Latin term for fibrous tissue (fibro) and the Greek terms for muscle (myo) and pain (algia); therefore, the term literally means muscle and connective tissue pain. Fibromyalgia affects an estimated 10 million people in the United States and 3-6% of the world population. This disorder occurs in men, women, and children of all ages and ethnic groups. As in the case of a number of other pain disorders fibromyalgia is most prevalent in women, for instance, 75-90% of people with fibromyalgia are women ("Prevalence",n.d.). Fibromyalgia can be described as a syndrome that affects the musculoskeletal, nervous, immune, digestion, and endocrine systems. The most commonly reported symptoms include: chronic widespread pain, fatigue, sleep disturbance, headaches, heightened pain in response to tactile pressure (allodynia), Irritable Bowel Syndrome, and cognitive dysfunction (known as “fibrofog”) and memory trouble ("Centers for Disease”, n.d.). Even though there is no known cause for the etiology of fibromyalgia researchers have numerous assumptions including: a family history of fibromyalgia, hormone imbalances, and being exposed to stressful or traumatic events such as car accidents, infections, or repetitive bodily injuries("Office on Women 's Health”, n.d.) . Boston’s Gail K. Adler, MD, PhD, and fellow Harvard Medical School researchers conducted a study on

In a literal translation fibromyalgia means muscle fiber pain. It is a chronic pain disorder that causes pain and tenderness in the muscle to the touch. By affecting the way your brain processes pain signals, researchers believe that fibromyalgia amplifies those sensations. Robert Bennett MD, explains that different parts of the brain are involved in pain reactions. Pain sensation is necessary; it serves as a reflex to avoid discomfort. This unconscious reflex of avoidance causes the brain to swiftly react, before the actual awareness of the pain sensation occurs. This chronic disorder causes widespread body pain, fatigue, tension headache, digestive problems, depression, anxiety and temporomandibular joint disorder. To have an accurate diagnosis for fibromyalgia health professionals rely on physical examination, a precise tender point examination, and the patient’s history.

Fibromyalgia was initially thought to be a musculoskeletal syndrome since maximum of the pain was felt in the muscles and other soft tissue. However, recent studies and research have shown that fibromyalgia is a central nervous system ailment which causes uncharacteristic pain processing and leads in pain amplification. The three chief symptoms that are common to virtually everybody who struggles with fibromyalgia are pain, tiredness and sleep disorders.

The syndrome can range from manageable to disabling and difficult. About one-third of patients tend to get better over time. About one-third can be managed with treatment, and about one-third continue to struggle with pain that affects their quality of life. There is some evidence that chronic pain and sensory abnormalities do decrease over time. Unfortunately, there are very few studies looking at the natural history of pain duration of individual neuropathic pain syndromes. Most are retrospective studies using data combined from all sources of pain following surgery. The key takeaway for primary care providers is that PMPS is a real and common problem for many women after mastectomy. This is a neuropathic pain syndrome. It does not indicate

Diagnosis of FMS is often very difficult. There are many different symptoms that seem to be unrelated. Some of the symptoms such as fatigue overlap with many other diseases. A patient will often have to visit many different doctors before being properly diagnosed. Also, there currently is no lab test to rule whether or not a patient actually has FMS. As physicians become more aware of the disorder and its classic symptoms, it will be easier for them to diagnose it. Still, many other diseases and disorders must first be ruled out before the patient is diagnosed as having fibromyalgia. The American College of Rheumatology (ACR) has established some criteria for diagnosis: more than three months of muscular pain and tender points, there must be pain in all four quadrants of the body (top, bottom, left, right), and there must be at least eleven tender points (the ACR has established eighteen of these points). (Source 1)

I have elected to pursue research in the field of neuroscience because I relish the approach of logical thinking to satisfy the curiosity of knowing things about me and the world around me. Neuroscience is a fascinating area with a limitless possibility of understanding and uncovering to resolve so many unanswered and unimagined questions. Although, in recent years, a large number of breakthroughs research have been done in the area of neuroscience, still, there is a lot more to discover and untangle in this area. Such an enormous amount of research work in this area has led open to the advancement in the diagnosis and therapeutic approaches to several neurological disorders and cancer such as glioma. Therefore, I decided

Research is also being done to help with the curing of Bell’s Palsy. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) performs extensive research in order to better the understanding of how the nervous system works and what causes dysfunction in the nervous system. Some of this research entails learning more about what causes nerve damage and certain diseases and conditions that cause nerve damage. Information gained from this research can aid neurologists to find the cause of Bell’s Palsy, which would obviously lead to better treatments (NINDS, 2011).