A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO PSORIASIS IN GOSSELIES - BELGIUM

Early 2008, the Dermatology team at Clinique Notre-Dame de Grâce (Gosselies-Belgium) has initiated, in collaboration with GIPSO, a support program dedicated to patients suffering from medium to severe psoriasis.

Doctor Françoise POOT, Head of the Dermatology Service and member of the GIPSO’s Scientific Committee, invited GIPSO representatives in order to put in concrete form the MODULE PSORIASIS , which is to be integrated into their therapeutic project « BETTER BEING CENTRE », the first of its kind in the French Community of Belgium.

What is it about?

This innovative program is operated by the Clinique’s Wellbeing Center
(Centre Mieux-Etre), a holistic, integrative and complementary medical
center offering since 2006 multidisciplinary therapy and support
programs in areas such as obesity, stress, fibromyalgia, cancer, giving
up smoking.

The aim of a Center for holistic medecine (taking into account the person in all his, or her, dimesions) is to consider all aspects of the patient’s physical as well as psychological suffering. Indeed numerous patients complain about an approach split between various disciplines, whereas the whole of the subject is to be examined.

A diagnosis, followed by a therapeutic plan, must be established in a multidisciplinary perspective for patients who are taken charge of in the long term by several intervening parties.

Located in a hospital, it is a center for curative medecine run by a pluridisciplinary team of physicians and paramedics who associate a number of complementary techniques based on objective and scientific purposes such as physical activity, diet advice, relaxation, aquagym, beauty care, psychological help .....

The efficiency of the treatment of a patient within the framework of the Centre’s activities requires from the patient a regular attendance to the totality of the disciplines that concern him and that have been planned by common consent by the various intervening parties together with the General Practitioner.

How does the centre work?

The functioning principle is based on three phases:

1. The phase of multidisciplinary orientation : all the intervening parties confer an determine the best way to take charge of the patient after a thorough examination of the physical or psychological health, taking into account the patient’s expectations; the team then work out an evaluation.
   • The phase of multidisciplinary taking in charge : once the evaluation is known, the therapeutic proposition will be related to the problem to treat, taking into account the possibilities of the patient and the frequency of the prestations to ensure real progress.
   • A phase of intermediary evaluation: after 4 to 6 weeks, the coordinating doctor assesses with the patient the evolution and the progress achieved in order to consider possible changes in the treatment.

Are you suffering from psoriasis?

We know this affection frequently modifies the image you can have of yourself, damages your quality of life, can have consequences on your professional life as well as on familial and social relationships. It condemns patients to assume exacting and sometimes fastidious treatments.

The Better Being Centre proposes a learning and support programme which complements the medical treatment to gain better understanding of the illness, to overcome its servitudes and to manage the medical care prescribed by the physician in the best of ways.

The Psoriasis program is meant to help to better cope with the disease and thus improve quality of life.
The program begins with a short individual assessment phase with the following practitioners: psychologist, coordinating physician, muscle and joints specialist, dietician (in case of associated obesity).
The assessment leads to a proposal to enroll in the therapeutic pathway and join a group of about eight patients, for a period of ten to twelve weeks.
Group activities are organized once or twice a week; they include

• Information sessions, jointly organized with GIPSO :
• understand psoriasis, its relation to stress and quality of life
• understand the benefits of sport and physical activity
• sessions to learn and experience relaxation and build a positive relationship with one’s body
• cosmetic skin care workshops
• water gym
• an individual follow-up visit with the coordinating physician
• discussion and evaluation at the end of the program.
  This initiative of the medical team of the Clinique Notre-Dame de Grâce in Gosselies
  looks innovating and likely to bring help and comfort.

For further information :

Clinique Notre-Dame de Grâce : Dr Françoise Poot

Tel : 071 / 379.654 francoise.poot@cndg.be; www.cndg.be

GIPSO: info@gipso.info ; www.gipso.info (Secrétariat): Tel: 04 365 07 38

Antoinette ROMEO

Jules LEROUX