Hermisson, Joachim, Schreiner, Claudia, Weichselbaumer, Stefanie et al. · Wiener medizinische Wochenschrift (1946) · 2026 · DOI
This is a clinical guidance document developed by experts across nursing, physical therapy, medicine, and public health to help healthcare professionals and family caregivers provide home-based care for people with severe ME/CFS. The guide describes practical adjustments to everyday care tasks—such as nutrition, personal hygiene, communication, and emotional support—designed to respect the exertion thresholds associated with post-exertional malaise (PEM), the hallmark symptom of ME/CFS. The recommendations are based on strategies reported as helpful by patients and family caregivers, though the strength of evidence for each measure has not been formally graded in this summary.
ME/CFS patients with severe disease often face inadequate professional care and support, with most home care provided by unprepared family members. This guidance fills a critical gap by offering healthcare professionals concrete, disease-aware strategies for adapting routine care to the specific constraints imposed by PEM, potentially reducing iatrogenic exacerbation. For patients and caregivers, the document provides structured, expert-reviewed measures observed as beneficial in clinical practice.
This guidance does not establish the efficacy of any individual intervention through controlled trial; it does not prove that following these recommendations will prevent symptom exacerbation in all patients; it does not provide a mechanism for why PEM occurs or how to fundamentally reverse it; and it does not replace individualised medical assessment or diagnosis.
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
Hermisson, Joachim, Schreiner, Claudia, Weichselbaumer, Stefanie, Werner, Marlene, Hackl, Verena, Roth, Jacob, et al. (2026). Guidance on Home-Based Care for People with Severe ME/CFS: A Transdisciplinary Expert Statement.. Wiener medizinische Wochenschrift (1946). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10354-026-01182-3
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-hermisson-2026-guidance-home,
author = {Hermisson, Joachim and Schreiner, Claudia and Weichselbaumer, Stefanie and Werner, Marlene and Hackl, Verena and Roth, Jacob and Leiss, Sandra and Maukner, Anna Christina and Wojczewski, Silvia and Hainzl, Astrid and Hermisson, Sabine and Thonhofer, Kevin and Pleschberger, Sabine and Hoffmann, Kathryn},
title = {Guidance on Home-Based Care for People with Severe ME/CFS: A Transdisciplinary Expert Statement.},
journal = {Wiener medizinische Wochenschrift (1946)},
year = {2026},
doi = {10.1007/s10354-026-01182-3},
note = {PubMed: 42525195},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/hermisson-2026-guidance-home},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-08-02. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/hermisson-2026-guidance-home
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