ABSTRACT
Functional syndromes characterized by malaise, widespread or localized pain, cognitive abnormalities, anxiety, depression, and somatic preoccupation have been identified for more than centuries. Since the early 1980s, a syndrome of persistent fatigue and symptoms resembling those of common viral infections has captured widespread medical and public attention. Patients with psychiatric disorders that preceded the onset of the fatigue-dominated illness were considered ineligible for the diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome. A few months later, a large interdisciplinary group of British investigators produced a new definition for chronic fatigue syndrome. A comparison of these case definitions was performed on 805 patients with debilitating fatigue examined at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, and Harborview Medical Center, Seattle. The diagnostic criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome were revised by the International Chronic Fatigue Study Group assembled at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1993.
