Sommerfelt, Kristian, Schei, Trude, Seton, Katharine A et al. · Journal of clinical medicine · 2024 · DOI
Researchers created a new questionnaire called FUNCAP to measure how much people with ME/CFS can actually do in their daily lives. The tool has two versions: a longer one with 55 questions (for doctors and disability assessments) and a shorter one with 27 questions (for regular check-ups). After testing it with thousands of patients from Norway and around the world, they found it works reliably and accurately captures the impact of ME/CFS on real-life activities.
Many ME/CFS patients struggle to get accurate diagnoses and access disability benefits because doctors lack standardized tools to measure functional limitations. FUNCAP fills this critical gap by providing a validated, patient-centered assessment that reflects how post-exertional malaise actually impacts daily life—potentially improving both clinical care and research on new treatments.
This study does not prove that FUNCAP is superior to other functional assessment tools, nor does it demonstrate whether the questionnaire can predict disease progression or treatment response. It also does not establish which specific interventions might improve functional capacity—it only measures capacity itself.
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
Sommerfelt, Kristian, Schei, Trude, Seton, Katharine A, & Carding, Simon R (2024). Assessing Functional Capacity in Myalgic Encephalopathy/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Patient-Informed Questionnaire.. Journal of clinical medicine. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm13123486
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-sommerfelt-2024-assessing-functional,
author = {Sommerfelt, Kristian and Schei, Trude and Seton, Katharine A and Carding, Simon R},
title = {Assessing Functional Capacity in Myalgic Encephalopathy/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Patient-Informed Questionnaire.},
journal = {Journal of clinical medicine},
year = {2024},
doi = {10.3390/jcm13123486},
note = {PubMed: 38930014},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/sommerfelt-2024-assessing-functional},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-27. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/sommerfelt-2024-assessing-functional
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