Authors’ reply to Ward

Ward comments1 on a lack of acknowledgement of functional symptoms in long covid in our Practice Pointer.2The terms “organic” and “functional” are misleading. They imply a clear (Cartesian) split between illnesses of the body and those of the mind.3 Long covid symptoms have been shown to be associated with various structural abnormalities in different organs and derangement of physiological function.45 Like any other medical condition, long covid also includes an element of mental processing of symptoms and emotional and psychological reaction to the illness and the limitations it confers. We did not ignore these aspects of long covid; we included them as key elements of a whole person condition that requires whole person management.The patient’s symptoms may be many, varied, and fluctuating; no single biomarker exists to confirm or exclude long covid. Rather than label this pattern as “functional,” we need to listen carefully to the patient’s story, do a…
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