Equitable approach to multiple sclerosis in all Autonomous Communities

The director of the Multiple Sclerosis Spain association, Beatriz Martínez, has recently called for an equitable and multidisciplinary approach in all the autonomous communities of this neurodegenerative disease with no cure, which in Spain affects more than 58,000 people and is one of the main causes of non-traumatic disability in young people.

During a conference organized by the Ministry of Health, he highlighted “the need for early diagnosis and precise for a comprehensive and multidisciplinary approach to multiple sclerosis”.

Martínez has detailed that the entity has worked throughout the year together with the Observatory of the University of Murcia in an investigation into the assessment of disability in Spain, given the regulatory change in the application of RD 888/2022, in which “delays, inequality and lack of means” have been detected.

For her part, the president of Multiple Sclerosis Spain, Ana Torredemer Marcet, has stated that the assessment of the disability linked to multiple sclerosis is going through a “process of profound transformation”, and that it is a “key moment” for the defense of patients’ rights.

Up to a 35 percent of people with multiple sclerosis in Spain do not receive any rehabilitative treatmentand two out of five are not satisfied with the treatment of their symptoms, as stated in the European study ‘Impact of Multiple Sclerosis Symptoms (IMSS)’.

Only 11% of patients have a caregiver

The research also shows an average delay of three years between the appearance of the first symptoms and the diagnosis of the disease, with diagnostic times that present great heterogeneity. Although 87 percent of them have received modifying treatments, their onset is delayed almost two years.

The data exposes a “notable impact” on their quality of life and in employment, and a third of patients do not work due to the disease, and those who do end up reporting more symptoms.

Furthermore, only one 11 percent of patients have a caregiver, despite the fact that 13 percent would need it, while care is mostly provided by their relatives.

This is why they have proposed reinforcing territorial cohesion to guarantee a homogeneous procedure in all the autonomous communities and creating a State Observatory; improve specialized training for assessment teams; modernize and make digital systems more accessible; or develop specific protocols for diseases as heterogeneous as multiple sclerosis.