Cheng, Abby L, Herman, Eric, Abramoff, Benjamin et al. · PM & R : the journal of injury, function, and rehabilitation · 2025 · DOI
This is a comprehensive clinical guide created by over 40 Long COVID treatment centers to help doctors evaluate and care for Long COVID patients. The guide covers how to assess symptoms, manage common problems like fatigue and brain fog, and help patients return to work or daily activities. It emphasizes that Long COVID is real, takes it seriously, and recommends treatments based on what doctors currently know while acknowledging many unknowns remain.
This multidisciplinary consensus guidance is highly relevant to ME/CFS because Long COVID is recognized as sharing pathophysiologic features with ME/CFS and other infection-associated chronic conditions, and the guidance explicitly states it may benefit clinicians managing these related disorders. The emphasis on validating patient experiences, avoiding activity escalation that triggers PEM/PESE, and holistic assessment directly addresses challenges faced by ME/CFS patients. This resource helps bridge gaps in specialist care, particularly important since ME/CFS and Long COVID patients often lack access to knowledgeable clinicians.
This guidance document does not prove the efficacy of any specific treatment for Long COVID or ME/CFS, nor does it establish causal relationships between interventions and symptom improvement. The compendium acknowledges explicitly that limited data exist for medication management specifically in Long COVID contexts, and it does not provide experimental evidence supporting any particular therapeutic approach. It is a consensus statement reflecting current clinical practice and expert opinion rather than a randomized controlled trial.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Cheng, Abby L, Herman, Eric, Abramoff, Benjamin, Anderson, Jordan R, Azola, Alba, Baratta, John M, et al. (2025). Multidisciplinary collaborative guidance on the assessment and treatment of patients with Long COVID: A compendium statement.. PM & R : the journal of injury, function, and rehabilitation. https://doi.org/10.1002/pmrj.13397
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-cheng-2025-multidisciplinary-collaborative,
author = {Cheng, Abby L and Herman, Eric and Abramoff, Benjamin and Anderson, Jordan R and Azola, Alba and Baratta, John M and Bartels, Matthew N and Bhavaraju-Sanka, Ratna and Blitshteyn, Svetlana and Fine, Jeffrey S and Fleming, Talya K and Verduzco-Gutierrez, Monica and Herrera, Joseph E and Karnik, Rasika and Kurylo, Monica and Longo, Michele T and McCauley, Mark D and Melamed, Esther and Miglis, Mitchell G and Neal, Jacqueline D and Oleson, Christina V and Putrino, David and Rydberg, Leslie and Silver, Julie K and Terzic, Carmen M and Whiteson, Jonathan H and Niehaus, William N},
title = {Multidisciplinary collaborative guidance on the assessment and treatment of patients with Long COVID: A compendium statement.},
journal = {PM & R : the journal of injury, function, and rehabilitation},
year = {2025},
doi = {10.1002/pmrj.13397},
note = {PubMed: 40261198},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/cheng-2025-multidisciplinary-collaborative},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-27. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/cheng-2025-multidisciplinary-collaborative
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