"Children's rehabilitation is a real challenge for me"
Dr. Peter Olšák works at the State Medical Spa Janské Lázně in Vesna Children's Hospital as a rehabilitation doctor and has been applying treatment for nerve palsies using a combination of acupuncture and electrotherapy in a facility in the Krkonoše Mountains for over a year. He developed this method himself and, in cooperation with Palacký University in Olomouc, continues to develop it and strive to improve its quality.
You came up with the treatment method, in which, in short, you insert needles into the patient's body and introduce current, more than five years ago. How did you come up with it?
I first used acupuncture and electroacupuncture to treat pain in patients in the rehabilitation department. Since we often treated severely paralyzed patients, our goal was to restore their movement. We were partially successful in this with conventional rehabilitation procedures, but there were still quite a few patients whose movement was restored only very slowly or practically not at all. It was with these patients that I thought of trying to use the traditional knowledge of acupuncture and connect it with the current knowledge of physical therapy that we use in rehabilitation medicine.
What results and patient responses to the treatment have you seen during that time?
On the one hand, I was excited by the great effect of the treatment I observed. On the other hand, I was cautious in interpreting the effect, because every doctor is at risk of succumbing to a certain self-deception when the effect is good. That is, the effect may not be as good as it seems at first glance. That is why I was waiting to see what the results would look like in a larger number of people. Today, we have successfully treated hundreds of patients and the results have been objectified by a number of tests. Patients themselves also tend to overestimate (or even underestimate) the treatment result. It is necessary to maintain a sober mind and objectivity. At one time, we also strictly tested patients using protocols in the kinesiology laboratory. This can move us forward.
What are the opinions of your medical colleagues? How do they view this method of treatment?
I have received very positive feedback at domestic and foreign congresses. We cooperate in the treatment of paralyzed patients with workplaces practically throughout the country. Dozens of colleagues are also graduates of courses for doctors, where they have the opportunity to learn these new procedures. Occasionally, a skeptic will appear who criticizes this method of treatment, for example on social networks, without actually knowing how the method is performed. However, these are rare cases. Most of the time, colleagues are rather pleasantly surprised by the results and consult with us about the indications and treatment options for their patients.
You will certainly occasionally meet people who lump acupuncture into the same category as all other, sometimes somewhat strange, alternative medicine. How do you try to explain to them that this is not the case?
Yes, sometimes there are such people among laypeople, but unfortunately sometimes there are also experts. Acupuncture is an official medical method in our country – it is given by legislation. The activities of acupuncturists are covered by Czech Medical Acupuncture Society Jan Evangelista Purkyně, which was founded more than fifty years ago. Our society's members are also academics and heads of various departments. Regular professional seminars and courses for doctors are organized. Research activities are also carried out, it is similar to other medical societies. Personally, I think that there is no need to explain much, it is enough to just inform about the facts. The scientific council of the Czech Medical Chamber has also confirmed the effectiveness acupuncture for some diagnoses based on scientific studies. The World Health Organization (WHO) has a list of diagnoses on its website for which acupuncture is recommended based on clinical studies. Anyone interested in serious information can find this.
How is the treatment of young patients at Vesna going so far? What is the interest in this above-standard care?
Treatment of children with electroacupuncture has its own specifics. An interesting finding is that young patients generally cope well with this treatment. Especially in the youngest ones, the application is well tolerated in most cases, often better than other non-invasive procedures. This is a significant shift for our youngest patients, for whom conventional rehabilitation procedures are quite limited due to their age. I am also pleased, and I am knocking on wood, that, similarly to adult patients, children also experience virtually no adverse effects during treatment. Right now, we are preparing to publish a video recording of a patient whom, thanks to teamwork, we managed to lift out of a wheelchair after severe spinal paralysis. The interest in the treatment is quite high and sometimes I am sorry that we could not accommodate all patients during the year. However, the situation is starting to improve, we have new doctors at Vesna and this opens up opportunities for us to expand the possibilities of therapeutic interventions across the entire spectrum of rehabilitation medicine.
Are you planning any innovations for it?
As for the method itself, in November we successfully defended the project at Palacký University in Olomouc. In this project of the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic, we managed to develop and test in practice an effective improvement of the method with a new technique. I hope that in the next steps we will be able to bring the certification of the new technology into practice so that it can be used not only experimentally, but also as a regular part of treatment. I firmly believe that we will expand the offer of new treatment procedures in our clinic as well. It is not just about electroacupuncture, because it is only suitable for a certain spectrum of patients. We are gradually trying to build teamwork between doctors, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists and other people who strive to improve the condition of our patients. We also have a number of modern devices, including robotics. Our efforts are aimed at harmonizing honest work with modern knowledge and thus enabling our patients to make further progress in their often very demanding treatment.
What else brought you to this world-renowned medical facility?
I think that there are few places in the country where we would find a rehabilitation facility dedicated to the rehabilitation of children that would treat such difficult cases as we do. Children's rehabilitation is demanding in many ways, but also beautiful. That is a real challenge for me.
What does your job entail and how is it different from the work you did before?
My work is primarily the treatment of our pediatric patients. I try to put together a treatment program for them in a way that leads to an improvement in their functional state. The current work is not much different from the work of a "classic" rehabilitation doctor. Before, I also worked more with adult patients, but today children predominate.
How did you get used to the Krkonoše Mountains? Does Vesna meet your expectations?
It's beautiful in the Krkonoše Mountains, it wasn't hard to get used to. It took me a while to get used to the new rhythm of work. Vesna Children's Hospital It has great potential for good treatment. It is now up to us to fulfill this potential.
At thirty-six, you are part of Vesna's young medical team. What would you say about it?
I am glad that our medical staff is changing and that we are starting to form a relatively young team of doctors here. The average age of the new doctors is just over thirty years, so on average each of us has more than five years of experience. Since we each have different experiences and have worked in different workplaces, we can pass on knowledge to each other. Our chief physician has been working at Vesna for almost 30 years and knows Vesna so well that no one will compete with him in this regard for a long time.
What advantages would you highlight about Janská Lázně doctors?
What unites us is the desire to do our job well. To try to devote as much as possible to our patients and the willingness to learn new things and procedures. The new colleagues are also very conscientious in their work and have a team spirit. I think that whoever comes to us in the new year will be able to taste something of the new atmosphere at the spa. The fact that five new doctors have joined in the last year and that another colleague will probably join next year is unique these days. Few spa facilities can boast such a medical team. This is probably the greatest current advantage of the doctors in Janská Lázně.
Young doctors often go abroad to work. Have you considered that?
Given that I had and am lucky to have pleasant working conditions, no. I can only thank my past and present colleagues for the fact that together we were able and still can create a good team for the treatment of our patients. In some ways it may be more difficult in our country, but coming somewhere where everything is on a platter would probably not be good for me. It is more sensible to go abroad or do an internship and then apply the procedures that can enrich us in our conditions.
What innovations in the treatment of pediatric patients at Vesna can we expect in the new year?
We are gradually implementing some new procedures that could improve the quality of our treatment. We are also trying to listen to our clients' comments and take steps to improve their stay. If everything goes well, we would also like to offer outpatient rehabilitation for patients from our area in the future. I don't like to announce in advance what we have prepared so that it doesn't go wrong. The best way to learn about the changes we are preparing is to come to our treatment center and try them out in practice.
Source: https://trutnovinky.cz/zpravy/z-okresu/2022/leden/detska-rehabilitace-je-pro-me-skutecne-vyzva/
