Lingering Lyme disease.The long-term effects of Lyme disease Lyme disease, a nonfatal bacterial infection that causes symptoms ranging from fever and headache to a painful swelling of the joints. The first American case of Lyme's characteristic rash was documented in 1970 and the disease was first identified in a cluster at appear more common than previously thought, researchers report. Studies of patients at neurology neurology (n  rŏl`əjē, ny–), study of the morphology, physiology, and pathology of the human nervous system. or Lyme disease clinics have shown that that the illness can have long-lasting symptoms. But until now, researchers had not done a controlled study of the disease's long-term effects in the general population, asserts Nancy A. Shadick of Brigham and Women's Hospital Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) is a hospital in the Longwood Area of the Boston, Massachusetts neighborhood of Mission Hill. With Massachusetts General Hospital, it is one of the two founding members of Partners HealthCare. in Boston and her colleagues. The team compared the cognitive and physical well-being of 38 adults from Ipswich, Mass., who had developed Lyme disease in the past 1 to 11 years with 43 residents of the same town who had not suffered from the infection. The Lyme group had a higher incidence of verbal memory impairment, fatigue, joint pain, and other musculoskeletal musculoskeletal /mus·cu·lo·skel·e·tal/ (-skel´e-t'l) pertaining to or comprising the skeleton and muscles. mus·cu·lo·skel·e·tal adj. Relating to or involving the muscles and the skeleton. difficulties than the uninfected group, the researchers report in the Oct. 15 ANNALS OF INTERNAL MEDICINE Annals of Internal Medicine (Ann Intern Med) is an academic medical journal published by the American College of Physicians (ACP). It publishes research articles and reviews in the area of internal medicine. Its current editor is Harold C. Sox. . "The presence of arthralgias [joint pain] was by far the best predictor of previous Lyme disease," they assert. Thirteen of the Lyme patients had long-term ills related to the infection. The longer someone had gone untreated after getting infected, the more apt he or she was to have persistent symptoms, the scientists report. If not eradicated with drugs early on, B. burgdorferi, the bacterium bacterium /bac·te·ri·um/ (bak-ter´e-um) pl. bacte´ria [L.] in general, any of the unicellular prokaryotic microorganisms that commonly multiply by cell division, lack a nucleus or membrane-bound organelles, and possess a cell that causes the illness, penetrates the body's central nervous system and joints, they note. The Lyme group had all taken antibiotics for their disease, but not everyone had received what physicians now consider optimal treatment, Shadick and her colleagues say. For example, only 19 patients received antibiotics within a month of the onset of symptoms. |
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