Good news about intestinal complaints

Living with chronic bowel disease (Inflammatory Bowel Disease or IBD) is no fun. IBD is the collective name for two chronic inflammatory diseases of the gut: ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. You can get IBD at any age, but there are peaks around age 20-30 and around age 60. If you have one of these diseases, you will get abdominal pain, diarrhea and regular blood loss during a flare-up. About 70 percent of IBD patients suffer from fatigue. Even in good times. Van der Meulen: “The abdominal pain and intestinal complaints determine your everyday life and you will regularly have to go to the hospital for an examination or a doctor’s visit. Fortunately, there is a digital tool that makes life less complicated.” Some doctors and software specialists have devised the ‘IBDcoach’ to make contact with the hospital easier. It is a remote care program. About 4300 patients communicate with the hospital via the computer. The number of hospitals that are connected to this e-Health program is growing.

With IBDcoach you keep control of your chronic illness at home

Van der Meulen was one of the founders of the IBDcoach. “You can keep control of your chronic illness at home, because you can write down your medical complaints and share them with healthcare providers. You can look back on how you felt during the past year and prepare the consultation with your MDL doctor by filling in questionnaires. Of course you can also prepare without the program, but then the doctor will still ask the standard questions during the consultation.The time that this takes – about five minutes on average – can now be used for questions about medication or an operation, for example. In addition, patients who are doing well don’t have to come to the hospital as often, which is half the visits for most patients.”

This article previously appeared in Plus Magazine January 2020. Want to subscribe to the magazine? You can do that in an instant!