Transforming the lives of rheumatic patients

One of our main purposes at Fundacion Maritere, is to help our patients recover their mobility and avoid disability. We lean partly on our phisiotherapy program to reach this objective. In these past months, 85 patients have received phisiotherapy. One of them is Ana, a young patient diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis 7 years ago. By the time she was unable to open a door without pain. She underwent an integral treatment at Fundacion Maritere and among the treatments that better worked for her are the physiotherapy and nutrition programs. She states that her life quality has improved hugely along this time and specially this year. Now she is able to move and do ordinary tasks such as opening a door, without pain.

By the end of january 2024, 125 rheumatic patients had been treated at Fundacion Maritere under our integral approach, resulting in great advances for them. All had access to medical treatment, physiotherapy, nutrition, psychology and medicine free of charge. In general, patients accomplished their treatment and had most of their symptoms (mainly joints pain) controlled. By the end of 2023, a test that measures the level of pain was applied to patients that presented extreme pain before their physiotherapy treatment. The results show that more than 50% of patients show a significant decrease in pain.

Also many of them presented significant advancement on an emotional aspect. On december, Fundacion Maritere applied a test that measures the level of depression in patients and the results show that there was a decrease in all levels of depression. All of these advancements translate into a greater ability to gain their productive and social life back.

Hortencia, for instance, is a woman that presented depression and now is able to move by herself and is experiencing less pain. Because of that and with the help of the psycologist, she says "she also feels better inside".