Optimizing DMD Care Through Multidisciplinary Collaboration

Announcer:
You’re listening to Neurofrontiers on ReachMD. On this episode, we’ll hear from Dr. Kaitlin Batley, who’s a pediatric neurologist at UT Southwestern Medical Center. She’ll be discussing the role of multidisciplinary care teams in diagnosing and treating Duchenne muscular dystrophy, or DMD. Here’s Dr. Batley now.

Dr. Batley:
The multidisciplinary care team in the management of Duchenne muscular dystrophy is really crucial. We know that DMD is a multi-systemic disorder; it affects every part of a patient with DMD and every aspect of their lives and their families. So it is always best when we can utilize a care team that focuses on each and every individual's particular needs. And so it is wonderful if we are not only able to have other clinicians who are passionate about DMD and the patients affected by it to be involved in a care team, but also great for continuity of care if we're able to form these kind of multidisciplinary clinics where we do have the same group of providers.

For us, we are fortunate that we've got a great team with cardiologists, pulmonologists, endocrinologists, palliative care doctors, respiratory therapists, nutritionists, PTs, OTs, and social workers: a really core group who are very invested in the care of patients with DMD. And I think that as we are able to each utilize our individual expertise, unique backgrounds, and perspectives, we're really able to optimize the care that we're providing.

I think one of the most important components is communication and the ability to just have a conversation. In a perfect world, we would all be in the same location, and we do that as best we can to sit in the same clinic office and see a patient together and then be able to discuss, but that's not always possible. When that isn't available, then we need to at least be able to have a conversation and know this is who I can reach out to, this is how I contact them, and this is how we can discuss a patient if we have any concerns. Because I do think that our patients appreciate when we're able to talk amongst each other and not just rely on the family to say, “Oh, my cardiologist told me this” and “My pulmonologist told me that” but to have us already have communicated and made that best plan for our patient moving forward as a team. So communication is crucial. And I think that if we're able to really solidify these teams, then we're able to provide the best care for our patients. We're able to help them understand their plan of care and also have improved trust in what we're recommending.

And I think that as our therapeutics for Duchenne change, they're very exciting but also a little bit more complicated because we are dealing with things like monitoring for potential adverse events. And by having a team that is able to communicate about the new therapeutics and to understand and be proactive in management and awareness of potential adverse events, we're able to hopefully mitigate these and allow our patients to have the benefits from our therapies with minimal side effects.

Announcer:
That was Dr. Kaitlin Batley talking about improving outcomes for patients with DMD through multidisciplinary strategies. To access this and other episodes in our series, visit Neurofrontiers on ReachMD.com, where you can Be Part of the Knowledge. Thanks for listening!