RHEUMATIC DISEASES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26631, 29 November 1947, Page 8

RHEUMATIC DISEASES

SPA TREATMENT INADEQUATE VALUABLE IN CONVALESCENCE ONLY P.A AUCKLAND, Nov. 28. “ Spas should be used only for convalescent treatment unless ■ they are provided with adequate beds and with full general hospital staff to deal_with rheumatic diseases,” said Dr C. B. Heald, of London, an authority on rheumatology, in an interview. Dr Heald has spent three months in New Zealand lecturing on recent wk in the treatment of rheumatic diseases at the invitation of the Health Department and the British Medical Association. He will leave by air for Sydney on Monday. “In England spas are used very largely by large groups of people who spend only about three weeks there, he said. A spa cannot carry the vast arthritic population, and the majority have neither facilities nor first-class consultants in their vicinity, Dr Heald said. In spas all over the world people insisted on a diagnosis and a cure within three or four weeks. In so tar as they made this demand on the profession, they- had become largely responsible for the inability of the profession to develop a basic diagnosis and knowledge. “If spas are equipped with adequate beds where unhurried treatment can be carried out in the closest association with a general hospital with its full staff, there is no reason why they should not do just as good or better work as other methods, said Dr Heald. His outstanding impression, confirmed by talks with a large numbre of medical practitioners, was that there was a high incidence of rheumatic diseases in New Zealand, it followed that an important industrial disability faced the country, and the longer an attack on the problem was delayed the more serious would be the inroads. Dr Heald said that the treatment of rheumatic diseases in New Zealand, as in England, showed a tendency to turn to massage or visits to thermal spas. There was no. concerted differential diagnostic attack on rheumatic diseases. Physical therapy was not in itself curative, although it had an important role, but it should never be used as the preliminary form of treatment or before a basic diagnosis was made. Treatment should centre round the bed. This did not mean full hospitalisation, but rather full control of the patient, diet, rest, exercise, work, and treatment. A complete and sound basic diagnosis should be secured before any plan of treatment was made.