Adnkronos Rome, April 30 (Adnkronos Salute) – "Our activity is constantly growing, because the fact that we know that here people with ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and muscular diseases receive 360-degree attention has meant that the demand is increasing more and more. It is a beautiful moment of activity that confirms" how "the idea that Alberto Fontana had – that is, that 'healthcare should be rethought according to new needs, the needs that are created in people' – was right.
After 10 years of activity I have to say 'why didn't we think of it before?', and again 'it's impossible that others don't adapt to a multidisciplinary model' like this". So said Mario Sabatelli, director of the Nemo Adult Clinical Center at the Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome, on the occasion of the ceremony to name the center - today at the Gemelli - after the Blessed Armida Barelli, co-founder of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, who passed away in 1952 due to ALS, on the day in which we remember her beatification which took place on April 30, 2022. "With the event", adds the secretary of the Nemo Clinical Center Alberto Fontana, "we renew our desire to make it possible to defeat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: we believe that the union between science and faith is the best tool to fight this battle".
The adult area of the Nemo Roma Clinical Center has been active since 2015 with 10 beds. In the last year it has cared for approximately 1.200 people, with over 300 hospitalizations, of which 80% with ALS: of the 400 new patients taken in charge in 2024, 230 are people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and more than half are new diagnoses. "We need the Nemo centers model to be widespread - Sabatelli emphasizes - the way of thinking about care that Nemo has brought". It is "a multidisciplinary organization dedicated to people with muscle diseases who do not breathe, do not swallow, do not move. There is no other structure that is organized like this: physiotherapists, nurses, doctors. We are together: pulmonologists and neurologists who work side by side and not in a consultancy relationship. This makes a huge difference".
After 30 years in a normal department, with the experience of Nemo, "my reflection is: 'How did I manage to work those 30 years before?'. I worked in a Neurology department - Sabatelli recalls - with consultants who came, therapists who passed by for an hour a day. The patient with respiratory problems attached to machines was almost a nuisance. Instead, in this department, the complex patient is the center of our activity. Before, they were considered a sort of burden, and that's how it is, because they are people" who have a strong impact "on the economic, care, management level. In this department dedicated to them, a total change has taken place".