Team medical care for people with multiple sclerosis ―Our role to know “the disease” and “the person's live”―

Abstract

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is characterized by a young onset and an unpredictable prognosis. Although there are multiple effective drugs available, most people with MS eventually will have a clinically progression and a worsening disability. The serious physical and mental problems will be a persistent burden on people with MS and their care givers all their lives, and they have to cope with the condition every day. The disease inevitably affects their daily livings, so those patients will also have to reconstruct their lifestyles according to worsening level of the disorders. Therefore, to keep their good quality of lives, they need daily supports from various medical professions concerning the people's lives as well as the characteristics of the disease, MS. A single function nor a person, even though they have an enough experience and knowledge for the disease, cannot deal with a various problem of people with MS who have various values, characters, living environments and lives they want. We discuss the importance of the role of the medical professions and the team medical care for people with MS, especially focusing on our important role to know both of “the disease” and “the person's live”. We also emphasize a pressing task to resolve medical fee system which appear to impede appropriate medical team cares, especially in outpatient care.