Stagnation Syndrome: Relevance of multilayers illness experience in Chinese Medicine to the understanding of functional somatic syndrome

Abstract

Functional somatic syndromes (FSS), characterized by significant physical symptoms without identifiable medical explanations, are common, often persistent and are associated with significant distress. They often co-occur with mental disorders, and such comorbidities are even higher than the similar comorbidities with comparable medical conditions. Similarly, FSS’s high comorbidity with mental disorder has also been observed in traditionally Chinese medicine (TCM). In a study we conducted to investigate the point prevalence of major depression among a group of patients diagnosed with stagnation syndrome (Ref # 748013, Research Grant Council, Hong Kong), an internal illness in TCM, the results showed that the comorbidity of stagnation syndrome with major depression was alarmingly high. Specifically, more than one quarter 8(26.5%) of the stagnation syndrome patients met the DSM-V diagnostic criteria for major depression. Over half (53%) of the patients experienced clinical significant depression symptoms, comparable to the rate reported among patients with somatic symptoms disorder (59.1%). Stagnation syndrome, with a high point prevalent rate of 6.2% among Chinese adults, can be understood as a functional somatic syndrome in the language of western medicine. It has long been regarded as the TCM counterpart of major depression in Western medicine because of its similarity to depression, particularly somatized depression, in terms of clinical presentations, such as sleeping problems, fatigue, headache, gastrointestinal problems, and emotional restlessness.