Fatiguelike

Fatiguelike is an adjective used in scholarly writing to describe states, symptoms, or processes that resemble fatigue but are not necessarily caused by fatigue proper. It is not a formal diagnostic category, but a descriptive label used to denote similarity to fatigue across different domains.

Usage spans medicine, psychology, and engineering. In healthcare and patient-reported outcomes, fatiguelike symptoms include transient tiredness, reduced energy, cognitive slowing, or malaise that mirrors fatigue but may have distinct etiologies such as sleep disruption, infection, chronic disease, or medication effects. In research, fatiguelike helps distinguish phenomenology from objective fatigue tests and supports differential diagnosis and targeted interventions.

In cognitive psychology and neuroscience, fatiguelike states refer to mental fatigue that reduces attention, processing speed, or decision accuracy, potentially with different underlying neural mechanisms than primary fatigue. In non-biomedical disciplines, the term is used metaphorically to describe performance decline or resource depletion that resembles fatigue during repeated tasks or stress, without implying a specific medical cause.

Etymology: formed from fatigue plus the -like suffix; its usage emphasizes resemblance rather than identity. Because it is descriptive rather than diagnostic, researchers are careful to specify the context and underlying factors when applying the term.

See also: fatigue, mental fatigue, chronic fatigue syndrome, post-exertional malaise.