Fibromyalgia Case Study

Fibromyalgia Syndrome (FMS) is a musculoskeletal illness (which causes chronic pain) and a chronic fatigue disorder. It can also change sleep patterns and cause the following: digestive disorders, chronic headaches, painful menstrual periods, temperature sensitivity, morning stiffness, numbness or tingling of extremities, and even cognitive memory problems. The name fibromyalgia comes from "fibro" in Latin meaning tissue, "my" in Greek meaning muscle, and "algia" (also Greek) meaning pain.(source 5)

There are so many common secondary symptoms that it is not unusual for a patient to be treated by multiple specialists for those symptoms over a period of years before they are diagnosed with FMS. Secondary symptoms need not be present for diagnosis, and will vary from one patient to the next.

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.

     Many people do not realize what effects your body can get when it does not have the proper physical needs to stay strong and healthy. One of the effects is a rheumatic syndrome called FIBROMYALGIA, also known as Fibrositis and Myofasical pain syndrome. This syndrome is diagnosed with a history of at least three months of widespread pain and tenderness in eleven to eighteen of tender-point sites. These points include: the neck, the shoulders, the chest, the rib cage, the lower back, the thighs, the knees, the arms(mainly the elbows), and the buttocks. The pain in these areas is defined as an overwhelming characteristic of FIBROMYALGIA and is long standing. These points are the trigger points,

Have you ever wondered what fibromyalgia is or how people living with it felt? People with fibromyalgia experience pain in ways no one else can really understand. Fibromyalgia is no mystery and it is caused by biofilm bacteria. Fibromyalgia is characterized by widespread of musculoskeletal and chronic pain disorder that causes pain and tenderness throughout your entire body. I effects people physically, mentally, and socially. The pain experience is described as deep muscular aching, shooting, throbbing or stabbing pain. It can occur in people of all ages including children and there is no cure for fibromyalgia but the pain can be controlled by a variety of medications. Fibromyalgia is one of the most common chronic pain conditions. It effects more than 5 million people in the United States, mostly women have it but men can have it to.

Excuse us mainstream medicine for borrowing your phrase – benefits outweigh the risks. But, dealing with fibromyalgia is a lonely business and members of fibromyalgia support groups agree, the mental and emotional benefits outweigh the risks.

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

A syndrome is a set of symptoms. When they exist together, they imply the presence of a specific disease or a greater chance of developing the disease. With fibromyalgia syndrome, the following symptoms commonly occur together:

Fibromyalgia is a medical condition caused by overactive nerves. Symptoms include widespread, chronic tenderness and pain all over the body.

What if I said that three times the amount of people in China is how many people have fibromyalgia in the world? About half of those people don’t know that they have it. Many people have had fibromyalgia for years and have no clue. Today, I am going to be informing you about fibromyalgia and how it is affecting many people around you. I chose this topic because my mom has been struggling with it for the past 15 years and just lately it has been getting bad so I wanted to know more about what is going on. I have done research about this topic to prepare for this presentation. First, I will be giving you an overview on what Fibromyalgia is. Second, I will be talking about the causes and symptoms of it. Finally, I will tell you about the treatments

Because, fibromyalgia is not physically visible. Health officials believe that it’s not a real disease. It has become a stigma against most fibromyalgia patients that they have accepted the pain that is overlooked by social security. According, to an article written by disability examiner once they have received a case and the only allegation is fibromyalgia, this makes their case poor. However, if another condition or disease is diagnosed along with fibromyalgia such as any muscle disease. Automatically their case is stronger and they’re more likely to be approved for disability. Not only, but also health officials have stated fibromyalgia patients must be severe enough to be disabling and have medical evidence and most times their cases do

Ruby is a 65-year-old volunteer with Fibromyalgia. She has been working in a community centre for more than 15 years. Doing, being and becoming make her an “occupational being” (Wilcock, 1999). The only hope for Ruby to stay healthy, active and keep doing volunteering work. She has been actively engaged in a variety of occupations which provide meaning in her life. The main occupations of Ruby is central to her identity which is contributing to the life of her families, and to participate in the society. Although she is experiencing Fibromyalgia, she enjoys working. She spoke of feeling a ‘sense of accomplishment’ when she was employed and able to support her family financially. She felt missing meaning in her life without the structure of

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.

For identifying the perceived musculoskeletal discomfort we used Cornell Musculoskeletal Discomfort Questionnaire (CMDQ) developed by Dr.Allen Hedge at Cornell University. CMDQ is a subjective rating scale for user’s perceived discomfort from work. The intensity of discomfort for each of the 12 body parts mentioned in the CMDQ questionnaires (Appendix B) for male and female was rated on three subscales 1. Frequency score 2. Discomfort score and 3. Interference score. The frequency score was rated from “never” to “several times a day” by weighting the rating scores as in Table 1 to more easily identify the most serious problems:

The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage” (1979). Pain is actually the culprit behind warranting a visit to a physician office for many people (Besson, 1999). Notoriously unpleasant, pain could also pose a threat as both a psychological and economic burden (Phillips, 2006). Sometimes pain does happen without any damage of tissue or any likely diseased state. The reasons for such pain are poorly understood and the term used to describe such type of pain is “psychogenic pain”. Also, the loss of productivity and daily activity due to pain is also significant. Pain engulfs a trillion dollars of GDP for lost work time and disability payments (Melnikova, 2010). Untreated pain not only impacts a person suffering from pain but also impacts their whole family. A person’s quality of life is negatively impacted by pain and it diminishes their ability to concentrate, work, exercise, socialize, perform daily routines, and sleep. All of these negative impacts ultimately lead to much more severe behavioral effects such as depression, aggression, mood alterations, isolation, and loss of self-esteem, which pose a great threat to human society.