Healing but also nurturing, restoring the essential spirit of medicine. Reconciling scientific evidence-based clinical efficacy with the humanization of care. This is one of the simultaneous reflections that physicians, patients’ associations, and educators are making into the guide Understand psoriasis from the active emotional model (Edited by Healthy Numbers), presented this week in Madrid.
The book calls for more emotional healing, a concept illustrated by these examples:
Caring for a chronic patient means understanding them and making decisions in a joint way, whether it is a change in the way you approach them or a referral to a specialist for new diseases that have caused the disease they already have.
Patient care includes asking about his condition before studying the progression of his disease.
Make time for that consultation, which happens once every three months. Personalize treatment for each patient because each patient is unique.
– When it comes to complex diseases such as psoriasis, care consists of paying attention to the physical manifestations in the form of plaques and peeling of the skin and knowing the psychological impact of these injuries.
Find out if you smoke more or eat worse due to injury anxiety. Either you sleep poorly or you don’t want to go out.
Know the impact this has on your personal and work relationships.
José Luis López Estebaranz, Head of the Dermatology Service at the Alcorcón Foundation University Hospital (Madrid), confirms that the patriarchal medicine paradigm has gone down in history: “It’s about collaborating with the patient and sharing how they want to be managed, with the media and the scientific evidence that exists.” López Estebaranz, a professor at Rey Juan Carlos University, compiled the book with a very relevant phrase when dealing with psoriasis: “One puts oneself in the patient’s skin.” From this particular patient. Because the injuries may be similar, but the teen who first appeared isn’t treated like a 70-year-old who’s had the disease for half his life. Because this fluctuating disease manifested in outbreaks undergoes a different evolution in each patient, it causes secondary diseases known as comorbidities. Increased chances of suffering from cardiovascular disease, diabetes or being overweight.
It is about collaborating with the patient and sharing how to manage it, with the media and the scientific evidence that exists
Jose Luis Lopez
According to a dermatologist, the likelihood of patients with psoriasis having a myocardial infarction increases by 50%. “This is why it is so essential that these patients are treated in a comprehensive manner,” says Lopez Esteparans. The hospital where he works has a special unit made up of dermatologists as well as rheumatologists and nurses. Others in other centers use psychologists to treat mental ramifications. To try to cure an incurable disease in the end. to take care of the patient. 1 million in Spain, according to Action Psoriasis, which represents 2.3% of the population.
Trust between patient and doctor
Like Monts Guinness, who has had psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis for 13 years. 31% of patients with first disease develop second disease, according to the NEXT Psoriasis Survey by Acción Psoriasis. Janice, who is the vice president of this association, describes the doctor-patient relationship she establishes with the rheumatologist: “He is a very important person in my life.” “There was a time when my rheumatologist got sick and questioned whether I would ever be able to get sick,” he continues. Every time he changes her treatment, he’ll have it approved. Within the instrumental emotional model, Guinness advocates that the patient always keeps the same doctor unless he or she asks for a change, which is their right. “It is difficult to explain the whole process I went through to a new person. Trust is difficult to achieve. It is not nice to tell all the time what happens to different people”, explains the 59-year-old from Barcelona.
Specialized units such as those at Alcorcón Hospital coordinate several specialists so that the patient does not recount his or her condition over and over again. Information is treated jointly, which sometimes reduces the number of visits to the clinic. “We improve times. We improve a patient’s journey through disease,” says the chief of dermatology.
López Estebaranz and Ginés co-presented the book Understanding Psoriasis from the Effective Emotional Model last Monday in Madrid. The round table formed with them and other professionals was joined by Santiago Alfonso, Managing Director of the Acción Psoriasis Association. Alfonso encourages patients to demand the best treatment and care. He encourages them, like Guinness and all the experts consulted, to be trained and informed. To inform them of everything that is happening to them. Guinness also advocates that relatives of patients have greater knowledge of the disease.
a book for everyone
The book offers a way to understand and treat this autoimmune inflammatory disease, and is intended for physicians, educators, patients, relatives and friends of patients, everyone. It is working to continue to screen for this disease, so that even those patients who decide to stop treatment again return to counseling. “The disease is not cured, but we have been successful in ensuring that many patients live 100% normal lives,” says Lopez Esteparans. “We no longer recommend quitting” to affect progress in the way it is handled and the best care patients receive, says Alfonso. “Not to stay at home and go to the doctor. It is a disease that limits social relationships and impedes career progression,” says Lopez Esteparans. 24.4% of patients indicated that psoriasis has an impact on family or partner relationships, according to the following psoriasis survey. 22.7% are affected In an academic or work environment.
Medicine cannot be done without taking into account the emotional aspect, without dealing with empathy, listening, looking at the face, understanding the personal situation of the patient and knowing how it affects him on a daily basis.
Monts Guinness
Guinness insists, though it’s clear that it turns out that the patients are not just their disease but the conditions around it. “You can’t take medication without taking into account the emotional side, without dealing with empathy, listening, looking at the face, understanding the patient’s personal situation and knowing how it affects him on a daily basis.” Guinness lists, in a sympathetic manner, the concepts that arise in seminars and meetings with professionals: comprehensive, patient-centered, comprehensive healthcare. “Yes, they are all good. But let’s define and integrate this emotional model into the system,” he says, referring to the fact that it is not enough to treat a patient on the basis of scientific evidence but with humanity and without relying on people’s voluntariness. in a systematic way.
