"Fibromyalgia: Overcoming Barriers to Diagnosis & Treatment"

Jointly Sponsored by Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the Univertsity of Florida College of Pharmacy, the National Fibromyalgia Association and M2 Communications, Inc.  Release Date:  June 2010,  End Date: June 2011

This activity has been designed to meet the educational needs of psychiatrists, neurologists, anesthesiologists, primary care providers, rheumatologists and any others involved in the treatment of fibromyalgia.

Pain is one of the most common reasons a patient visits a physician. It is estimated that the pain syndrome fibromyalgia affects as many as 10 million American people. Many physicians complete their residency program unaware of the magnitude of the problem and, on entering practice, do not know how to manage chronic pain.

This lack of knowledge and competence leads to misunderstanding of symptoms and treatment for fibromyalgia. Patients with fibromyalgia generally wait from 5 months to 1 1/2 years to make an appointment with their physician to discuss their symptoms. Following this appointment, patients face an average of 2 to 3 years before receiving an accurate diagnosis.

This course is designed to improve the recognition and understanding of fibromyalgia as a multi-system disease associated with a number of objective abnormalities, a wide range of symptoms and co-morbid conditions, improve confidence in properly diagnosing fibromyalgia from the multitude of symptoms that present during a clinical visit, and provide guidelines for the management of fibromyalgia.