EARLY Guidance Program for Patients with Multiple Sclerosis (PwMS): A NOVEL Approach

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Scientific research has shown that informing MS patients at the right moment can substantially improve the quality of life of patients and their families. That is why an early guidance program is, besides the MS reference team, the second complementary care program that recently has been developed in the National MS Center in Melsbroek, Belgium.

The National MS Center has, partly supported by the MS Leagues, built up similar experiences in the past with several educational projects. One of these consisted of the organization of an "MS school". The response of the involved patients and their families was so positive that a permanent early guidance program needed to be considered.

The early guidance program was elaborated on the principles of health promotion by tailor-made education, advice and guidance based on the individual needs of the PwMS. It aims to prevent for complications on physical, emotional and participation levels due to disease evolution. The approach is executed by a multidisciplinary team of MS experts. A multidisciplinary assessment of the different functions and impairments serves as the  basis on which attention is paid to:

• medical aspects: symptomatic treatment
• therapeutic aspects: physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy
• social integration: finances, accommodation, occupation, work, transport, devices, professional homecare
• relational aspects: relationship counseling, sexual advice, children and MS
• psychological and neuropsychological aspects: clinical counseling, exporing coping techniques

The program also allows novice PwMS to be introduced in Melsbroek’s rehabilitation vision and approach. The program is modular, adaptable to the patients’ needs and limited in time (6 sessions of 4 hours). It is delivered on an outpatient basis. This program is unique in every aspect eg. inviting novice PwMS to an expert MS Center, well dosed time duration, outpatient basis, complete and tailor-made character.

We would like to present the content and organization of this early guidance program as well as the evolution of patient satisfaction responses over the past years resulting in an at present satisfaction rating score of 8.5/10.