Do children get ME?

A recent study, published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood suggests that even children in primary school can suffer from disabling chronic fatigue syndrome or ME.

Esther Crawley and her colleague used data from children who presented to the Bath, UK, paediatric service between September 2004 and April 2007. They were inventoried for fatigue, pain, functional disability, anxiety, family history and other symptoms. Children under the age of 12 were compared with children aged 12 and over.

They found that disability in the under-12 age group was high, with low levels of school attendence, high levels of fatigue, anxiety, functional disability and pain. The clinical pattern seen was identical to that see in older children and in adults. Chronic fatigue syndrome/ME is defined in the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health Evidence Based Guideline for the Management of CFS/ME as "generalised fatigue persisting after routine tests and investigations have failed to identify an obvious underlying cause".