The interview
Renata Czago, Romania
What is your profession:
I am a Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation physician.
How is the rehabilitation treatment of spine diseases managed in your country?
In my country spine diseases are managed in different ways and this depends on where the patient addresses to. There are private and public hospitals and also sanatoriums for musculoskeletal diseases. Spinal diseases with mild symptomatology are mostly treated in an outpatient system in both private and public hospitals, in case of chronic and more severe problems the patients can address the rehabilitation systems, where they can go in some different ways, as vacation-spa like rehabilitation programs or as hospitalized patients. The severe cases are admitted in the hospitals for inpatient treatment, in this case, the period is mostly in all cases two weeks of treatment with a rehabilitation plan that can be also extended if needed.
Scoliosis: how is it treated?
Scoliosis is treated a bit chaotic depending on the experience and possibilities of the rehabilitation centres. There are some big centres where from the beginning a case can be solved until the final cure, meaningfully rehabilitated or in need of surgery. Mostly in the little centres and private practices the patient has the first evaluation and has to go to total different centres for imagistic investigations and bracing this meaning 3 or 4 different locations and centres. In rare cases there are facilities that can provide a multidisciplinary treatment, these are also fully equipped for the treatment of scoliosis in all of its phases, can provide investigations and very useful postural follow up tools and also bracing possibilities. Unfortunately, these facilities are focused mostly on other, more disabilitating diseases so the period in which a scoliosis patient can be admitted is limited, also he can rarely be readmitted to continue therapy, so in this way, these patients have to address to private practices or can continue the therapy at home. Nowadays private practices can offer really good rehabilitation possibilities because in order to help efficiently the scoliosis patients they follow and implement new protocols and therapeutic approaches.
Sincerely the COVID period also changed a lot in where the patient addresses and there is an affinity for individual and at-home therapies, in this period I saw unfortunately the most neglected cases.
What would you like to improve on the clinical practise currently followed in your country?
