As part of a nationwide network, the Comprehensive Care Center is intended to contribute to better diagnostics and treatment in Lower Saxony.
Long COVID remains an issue even years after the pandemic. Copyright: pixabay, Karin Kaiser/MHH
At the CCC, experts get to the bottom of complaints. Copyright: Canva
Many questions about Long COVID are still unanswered. For example, the exact cause of the disease has not yet been fully researched. This makes it difficult to diagnose and treat those affected. In order to improve the care situation, especially for children and adolescents, specialized facilities, so-called Comprehensive Care Centers (CCC), are currently being set up in all federal states. One of the 20 CCCs is being set up at the Children's Hospital of Hannover Medical School (MHH). "The CCCs are designed to be interdisciplinary and multi-professional. Together with scientific and clinical partners, we are establishing regional treatment structures for the state of Lower Saxony," explains PD Dr. Martin Wetzke. He is a senior physician in the
Department of Pediatric Pneumology and Allergology and heads the CCC at the MHH.
Extensive experience with the patient group
Dr. Wetzke and his team can draw on valuable experience when setting up the care center at the MHH. In the late phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a long-term/post-COVID outpatient clinic for children and adolescents, in which a total of around 200 patients were examined and treated. These included not only patients with long-COVID, but also with symptoms following a COVID vaccination or with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) of unknown cause. ME/CFS describes a severe state of fatigue that can occur after various viral infections. "COVID disease may or may not be the cause. A long-COVID diagnosis is often a diagnosis of exclusion," says Dr. Wetzke. This fact describes a core task of the CCC: to examine those affected with their various symptoms and make a diagnosis that is as reliable as possible. “A reliable diagnosis is always the prerequisite for successful treatment,” says Dr. Wetzke.
Numerous specialists involved
The structures of the CCC should be in place in a few weeks. The first patients can then be admitted. It is also envisaged that the CCC specialists will visit particularly severely affected children and adolescents at home and offer the families support in their everyday lives. In order to provide low-threshold care to as many patients as possible, the CCC cooperates with regional specialist outpatient clinics and wards as well as trained pediatricians and GP practices to provide basic care. Psychological and psychiatric, social and palliative medical specialists as well as experts in rehabilitative medicine are also on board.
