The medical profession has been aware that psychosocial issues can lead to physical symptoms at least since the days of Hippocrates about 2500 years ago. Yet diagnosis and treatment for the pain and other symptoms lag far behind nearly every other form of illness. In thinking about this I began to recognize several challenges to improving the quality of care for this condition.
Posts Tagged ‘psychophysiologic disorders’
Stress, Illness and Challenges
Thursday, December 11th, 2014New Research on Back Pain and Stress
Saturday, May 26th, 2012Keele University in Staffordshire, England is fifty years old and educates 10,000 undergraduates on a square mile of land once owned by the same family for four centuries and prior to that by the medieval Knights Templar. Their arthritis research unit has published an interesting paper comparing usual care of low back pain with a new approach based on stratifying patients into three groups (1).
Stress Illness and Arthur Miller (2)
Wednesday, June 15th, 2011Here we continue the discussion from the last post of Arthur Miller’s play Broken Glass which he wrote at age 78. The play with my commentary will be broadcast the weekend of June 18-19 on many NPR stations around the US and is available on the web site of the LA Theatre Workshop. See the last post for links.
Stress Illness and Arthur Miller (1)
Tuesday, June 14th, 2011On Saturday, June 18, 2011 many NPR stations around the US will broadcast a play that, during intermission, I comment on. Starting Friday night, the audio be available for a week on the website of The L.A. Theatre Works who produced it. The play is Broken Glass by Arthur Miller (1915 – 2005), an American playwright most famous for four plays he wrote in his 30s: Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, A View from the Bridge and, my personal favorite, All My Sons. His notoriety increased further at age 40 when he left his wife of 16 years and, weeks later, married Marilyn Monroe.
How Physicians View Stress Illness (3)
Friday, April 29th, 2011In the last two posts, we reviewed a quotation from Dr Jerome Groopman that highlighted two common physician errors, the first being to lump together all patients with medically unexplained symptoms and label them hypochondriacs.
How Physicians View Stress Illness (2)
Wednesday, April 27th, 2011In the last post, a quotation from Dr Jerome Groopman highlighted two common physician errors, the first being to lump together all patients with medically unexplained symptoms and label them hypochondriacs.
How Physicians View Stress Illness (1)
Monday, April 25th, 2011Jerome Groopman, MD is the Chair of the Department of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an author of numerous scientific journal articles on AIDS and cancer. His recent book, How Doctors Think, has been a best seller.
Stress Illness and Shared Responsibility (2)
Tuesday, March 29th, 2011As described in the last post, in the future we can teach physicians who practice diagnostic medicine to be aware of Stress Illness and to ask a few key questions. (See the screening questionnaire on the Overview page of this site for examples). When they uncover significant stress, they can offer the patient referral for a Stress Check-Up, where a more detailed evaluation for stress is done by a mental health professional.
Stress Illness and Shared Responsibility (1)
Sunday, March 27th, 2011Before I retired from practice in 2009, I developed an excellent working relationship with a Gynecologist whom I never met or spoke with. Though we exchanged a few emails, our principal form of communication was through reading assessments of patients he referred to me. These were usually younger women who had suffered pain in the pelvic area for months or years. Pelvic exams, ultrasounds, CT scans and blood tests showed nothing.
