Dr Darrel Ho-Yen, Head of Microbiology at Raigmore Hospital, has collaborated with Dr Ellen Goudsmit and Professor Christine Dancey, two psychologists from the University of East London. The researchers have demonstrated that Dr Ho-Yen’s techniques have been very successful: after 3 sessions lasting less than 2 hours total, 82% of the treated patients rated themselves as “better” and 23% had improved to such a degree that they were discharged.

Dr Ho-Yen’s techniques have been recently updated in the fifth edition of his book, “Better Recovery from Viral Illnesses”, Dodona Books, Inverness. The first edition of this popular book was the first book in the world on ME.

The researchers work has been published in the peer-reviewed journal, “Patient Education and Counselling”. Their paper is entitled “Learning to cope with chronic illness. Efficacy of a multi-component treatment for people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome”. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) is also known as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) or Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome (PVFS).

This programme increased perceived self-efficacy and was educative in increasing the patient’s resources to deal with the illness and its psycho-social sequalae. Dr Ho-Yen’s new book has chapters on unemployment, young people, allergies and Lyme borreliosis.

Recent treatments of ME have had variable success. Dr Ho-Yen’s management system can be more flexible and can be tailor-made to the individual patient. The patients in this programme were seen less often and for a shorter period of time than the participants in other trials. The programme is very well suited to patients helping themselves and not needing input from healthcare professionals.