What Happened

The project seeks to offer psychological care for young adults with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) such as Crohn´s Disease or Ulcerative Colitis. These diseases cause abdominal pain, diarrhea, weight loss and weakness over time. More than 400,000 people in Germany live with a form of IBD. These diseases occur at the age of 15 to 35, when young people fall in love, leave their parents and plan their working life. IBD is not curable and can increase the risk of cancer as well as a low quality of life. People who have this disease often can´t work, lose social contacts and have problems in their partnerships. This often leads to the development of shame, anxiety and depression.

Agaplesion Markuskrankenhaus has been operating an Interdisciplinary IBD Centre since 2014 in the Department of Medicine. The head, Prof. Axel Dignaß, is an international expert in the treatment of IBD, over 1000 patients are treated every year at this centre. In 2004 the hospital established a well-integrated Psychooncology.

“Often our medical colleagues ask whether we can support more young patients with IBD due to the burden that they must endure, unfortunately we have no specialized professional psychological support for these patients and their families in Germany. German medical insurance does not provide specialized psychological support for these patients and their families, neither for outpatients or for inpatients. This is a problem we seek to find a solution for.”

                  -------------  Claudia Gutmann (Leading Psychologist)

The Recommended treatment

Agaplesion MarkusKrankenhaus Psychologist team will establish specialized support for patients and their families.

Offer 10 hours counseling per week over the span of 1 year; Encourage the families to raise hopes and begin a new life with IBD; To lead the way for other initiatives throughout the country.

How These Funds Will Help Them
The AIWC is known for supporting projects in fields dealing with taboos. Its charitable donation makes it possible to establish better care for people, often women. IBD and its demanding consequences are still widely unknown. By providing professional psychological counselling and distributing a flyer we hope to increase awareness so that it will become easier for the affected persons to speak about the disease and to stay in contact with their friends and colleagues.

Money raised from the AIWC would be used to provide psychological counselling to patients and their families treated in Agaplesion Markuskrankenhaus. We would like to offer support in order to help to manage the very hard treatments and to improve psychological strategies. Young women are in a special situation. They have problems with fertility and, as a consequence, they are unable to grow their family. Some already have small children and are unable to provide the care necessary due to this illness. Their parents often need support, too. These patient’s personal situations are all different, yet difficult.