Specialist for Frankfurt: Hope for DMP for obesity
Endocrinologist for Frankfurt welcomes efforts for DMP for people with obesity
FRANFKURT – DMP stands for Disease Management Programme. It is associated with guideline-based and needs-orientated care, which is now to be extended to patients with obesity. Against this background, Prof. Dr med. Dr h.c. Christian Wüster, endocrinologist for the Frankfurt / Rhine-Main region, welcomes the current legislative process with the aim of launching an obesity DMP. For the specialist, better care for patients with obesity is associated with the opportunity to prevent the long-term burden of disease and premature deaths. According to the German Obesity Society (DAG), the care situation for patients with morbid obesity is currently ‘deficient’.
Specialist for the Frankfurt region welcomes the development of the DMP Obesity
The aim of the DMP Obesity is to improve the treatment process and the quality of medical care for chronically ill patients. With the help of a DMP, patients could receive high-quality, structured, multimodal and interdisciplinary care. The DMP should include both conservative and surgical therapies and training programmes.
For Prof Wüster, it is ‘extremely important that patients receive individualised and adequate treatment. This is because the causes of obesity can be very diverse.’ In addition to endocrinological, i.e. metabolic, causes, a variety of factors play a role in the development of obesity. It is important for the specialist, who also treats patients from the Frankfurt area, to realise that obesity treatment requires lifelong disease management.
DMP obesity can improve care according to endocrinologist for Frankfurt
According to the endocrinologist, structured and interdisciplinary treatment of patients with obesity can prevent secondary diseases and thus reduce costs in the healthcare system as a whole. This is because it is not uncommon for patients with a body mass index of over 30 kg/m2 to develop metabolic diseases such as diabetes mellitus or cardiovascular diseases. According to the Robert Koch Institute, 23 to 24 per cent of the population between the ages of 18 and 79 suffer from obesity.
