The Diagnosis & Management of DMD
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- Kate Bushby Kate Bushby is a clinical academic with joint appointments between Newcastle University and the...
Academic article
It is recognised that receiving the best care can dramatically improve the quality of life and life expectancy of individuals with DMD, enabling them to lead fulfilling, independent lives into adulthood. The importance of care recommendations such as these therefore cannot be underestimated. The international guidelines, which cover the diagnostics, cardiovascular, neuromuscular, gastroenterology/nutrition, orthopaedic/surgical, psychosocial, rehabilitation and respiratory fields, can be used by doctors, patients and families worldwide as a guide to the treatment that individuals with Duchenne should receive at each stage of the disease. They are also a valuable tool for lobbying at a national level to enable incorporation of these recommendations into national health systems. The guidelines represent real international consensus including both the medical and the patient advocacy perspectives and can be used across the world as a powerful tool to recognize those centres where best practice is already in place and to identify gaps in care.
| The Diagnosis and Management of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy * Bushby K et al. Part 1: Lancet Neurol. 2010 Jan; 9(1):77-93. Part 2: Lancet Neurol. 2010 Feb; 9(2):177-189 Click here to download the entire article (parts 1 and 2 combined) from the TREAT-NMD website. |
Links to the same article via the publisher's website
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The Diagnosis and Management of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Bushby K et al. Part 1: Lancet Neurol. 2010 Jan; 9(1):77-93.Part 2: Lancet Neurol. 2010 Feb; 9(2):177-189 |
The document is available in the January 2010 and February 2010 editions of the printed journal, online from the journal's website, or here on this page, with special permission from the journal's publisher Elsevier.
Most of the recommendations in the document are not for especially expensive or hard-to-obtain treatments, or indeed for care that is not already available in many of the best centres worldwide. What is stressed is the importance of a multidisciplinary approach – the necessity for patients to see specialists in all the fields that are involved in DMD, and for those specialists to talk to one another to ensure a coordinated approach to the care of each individual. With this authoritative document behind them, TREAT-NMD will work with patient advocacy groups, healthcare professionals and health authorities across the world to establish the best ways of implementing these recommendations and ensuring that all individuals with Duchenne have access to best-practice care.
* PLEASE NOTE : if you downloaded your copy of the second article BEFORE Jan 18th 2010, please download it again! The new version contains an important correction.
