Patient Skills

Self-help

More and more patients with chronical diseases wish to contribute themselves to overcoming their illness. They ask questions about their own strengths and possibilities as complement to their medical treatment which concentrates on the therapy of their illness. They resort to self-help. They look for their own personal way. They reflect on their responsibility as patients. Briefly, they would like to be competent patients.
Often, however, it is not so easy

• to find one’s own personal way,
• to accept one’s altered circumstances,
• to discover one’s inner forces of self-healing,
• to distinguish unreliable from reliable offers on the medical market,
• or to make one’s way in everyday life once again after having overcome one’s crisis.

The personal way

The way to patient skills is often quite difficult, but it can be easier with an experienced counsellor, a companion or a coach at the beginning. In our counselling we always set out from the ideas a patient or a relative has. 

Questions of competent patients and corresponding services offered by our counselling

• What can I do for me myself? 
• How can I strengthen my power of resistence?
• How can I acquire the necessary knowledge and the necessary skills?
• How can I change my life?
• Support in working out new visions of life::
  • Nutrition, phyical fitness, structuring your daily life, selfempowerment
  • Causes and meaning of life, profession and relationships,
  • The spiritual dimension: Belief and trust.
• What can I profit from complementary medicine? 
• How can I learn patient skills sytematically? 
  • Navigation and coaching: Support by a personal pilot up to a patient’s the independence,
  • Study material for acquiring patient skills,
  • My life after my illness: a new normality.

Specialist and organisational integration

The consultation is integrated in the Oncology- and Haematology-Team Prolindo and is carried out by a patient-skills-consultant who has been certified by the “Stiftung Patientenkompetenz” (Foundation for Patient Skills). Thus the link between the world of medicine and the world of the patient is provided.

Patronage “Stiftung Patientenkompetenz” (Foundation for Patient Skills) and quality control

The consultation in patient skills of Prolindo is part of a development project of the Foundation for Patient Skills. The consultation by Prolindo is subject to the quality control and the audits by the Foundation for Patient Skills.

Contact

Dr Christa K. Baumann MD, Prolindo, Oncology- and Haematology-Team at Lindenhof Hospital
Bremgartenstrasse 119, CH-3001 Berne, Switzerland, Tel. +41 (0)31 302 15 50,
E-Mail: christa.baumann@prolindo.ch
www.prolindo.ch