dratalanta
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
If AfME expect patients to get behind the "holistic Healthcare Services" they're touting in Shaping Our Future Together, then the ME Trust legacy services will need thorough review.
From that issue of InterAction magazine:
"Action for M.E. has now completed its merger with The ME Trust, offering Healthcare Services [including]... Physiotherapy. Our physiotherapist’s expertise and advice helps to improve quality of life, working gently, step by step towards increasing levels of activity and function... Coming up with a plan gives the patient a sense of control and hope" [my bolding].
The online info at https://www.actionforme.org.uk/get-support-now/our-healthcare-services/physiotherapy/ has all that plus the patient-blaming phrase "boom and bust", and some awful stuff about "addressing the damage that may have occurred due to spending a long time in bed or indoors".
AfME will have trouble promoting the NICE guideline nationally if they aren't implementing it in their own services. AfME's approach of "working gently, step by step, towards increasing levels of activity" does not seem to me to be in line with the guideline requirement that in "a personalised physical activity or exercise programme, agree a programme with them that involves...making flexible adjustments to their physical activity (up or down as needed)".
I'm honestly shocked after all the solid work AfME has done recently to see these old canards about planning one's way out of illness by "working gently". No matter how "gently" it is done, the premise that it is possible to exert oneself out of this illness is false and can be harmful. "Step by step" implies a single direction of travel, and that is where the harm is done.
Have @PhysiosforME been consulted about AfME's approach?
From that issue of InterAction magazine:
"Action for M.E. has now completed its merger with The ME Trust, offering Healthcare Services [including]... Physiotherapy. Our physiotherapist’s expertise and advice helps to improve quality of life, working gently, step by step towards increasing levels of activity and function... Coming up with a plan gives the patient a sense of control and hope" [my bolding].
The online info at https://www.actionforme.org.uk/get-support-now/our-healthcare-services/physiotherapy/ has all that plus the patient-blaming phrase "boom and bust", and some awful stuff about "addressing the damage that may have occurred due to spending a long time in bed or indoors".
AfME will have trouble promoting the NICE guideline nationally if they aren't implementing it in their own services. AfME's approach of "working gently, step by step, towards increasing levels of activity" does not seem to me to be in line with the guideline requirement that in "a personalised physical activity or exercise programme, agree a programme with them that involves...making flexible adjustments to their physical activity (up or down as needed)".
I'm honestly shocked after all the solid work AfME has done recently to see these old canards about planning one's way out of illness by "working gently". No matter how "gently" it is done, the premise that it is possible to exert oneself out of this illness is false and can be harmful. "Step by step" implies a single direction of travel, and that is where the harm is done.
Have @PhysiosforME been consulted about AfME's approach?