Rasouli, Omid, Fors, Egil A, Vasseljen, Ottar et al. · Pain research & management · 2018 · DOI
This study examined how well people with ME/CFS and fibromyalgia can balance while standing still, and whether doing mental math at the same time makes balancing harder. Researchers found that both ME/CFS and fibromyalgia patients had slightly worse balance control than healthy people, but surprisingly, adding a math task didn't make their balance worse—unlike what researchers expected.
Understanding postural control deficits in ME/CFS is important for patient safety and quality of life. This study challenges the assumption that cognitive demands worsen motor control in these conditions, suggesting the underlying postural problems may be relatively fixed rather than dynamically sensitive to cognitive load—which has implications for rehabilitation approaches.
This cross-sectional study cannot establish causality or determine whether postural deficits develop before or after illness onset. The study does not prove that cognitive load never affects ME/CFS patients' balance in real-world scenarios; laboratory conditions may not capture complex, dynamic balance demands. The lack of cognitive task effect does not rule out central nervous system involvement in postural control deficits.
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
Rasouli, Omid, Fors, Egil A, Vasseljen, Ottar, & Stensdotter, Ann-Katrin (2018). A Concurrent Cognitive Task Does Not Perturb Quiet Standing in Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.. Pain research & management. https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/9014232
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-rasouli-2018-concurrent-cognitive,
author = {Rasouli, Omid and Fors, Egil A and Vasseljen, Ottar and Stensdotter, Ann-Katrin},
title = {A Concurrent Cognitive Task Does Not Perturb Quiet Standing in Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.},
journal = {Pain research & management},
year = {2018},
doi = {10.1155/2018/9014232},
note = {PubMed: 30159106},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/rasouli-2018-concurrent-cognitive},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/rasouli-2018-concurrent-cognitive
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