FATIGUE, PTSD TESTS

It’s frustrating when a condition can only be diagnosed by its symptoms instead of by a test that would provide greater certainty. One such condition is chronic fatigue syndrome, but now Stanford researchers say they’re closing in on a blood test.

The test examines changes to electrical impulses in immune cells when they’re under stress. In the university’s announcement, the Stanford team said patients crave such a test because their suffering often is dismissed as imaginary.

Separately, NYU researchers reported in the journal Depression and Anxiety that, working with the same people who created the Siri smartphone assistant, they’ve developed a PTSD diagnostic tool that relies on speech pattern recognition. The Department of Defense has been looking for more reliable ways to diagnose PTSD because some people try to hide their symptoms while others exaggerate them, The New York Times reported.

The new technique identified 18 speech characteristics common to PTSD sufferers and used them to predict the condition with 89 percent accuracy.

The information posted on this blog and website are for general information only and should never be relied on as specific medical advice for an individual reader.  No financial relationship exists between us and any recommended products or persons mentioned. All material contained here is the property of the Sheldon Sowell Center for Health, PC, and cannot be copied, reprinted, or linked to without our express permission.