Prevention is better than cure! Without a doubt, this maxim is more than 65 years old… That's good, because it perfectly sums up the spirit of the new project launched by the Clinique du Velay for people of this age and older.
“Have a preventive day hospital”
In the rehabilitated old U buildings, the former Beauregard clinic has been providing medical and rehabilitation care (SMR) since 2022, particularly in the field of cardiology. On this well-known Ponots site, the private establishment has also been offering for several weeks a program dedicated to the prevention of age-related dependency. For now, it is titled: Aging well after 65.
“We think we are going to change our name,” explains Fannie Lemaire, the director of the SMR clinic in Velay, with a smile. “The idea is really to have a preventive day hospital […] This is a new paradigm. Instead of waiting until the person is sick, we will welcome them before. From the age of 65, the patient or their doctor can detect the first signs of prefragility. We now offer them a program to reduce these prefragilities or live with them. […] We are speaking not to sick people, but to people who do not want to be sick.”
7 places for now
The clinic formalized the opening of its new day hospital in mid-September. For the moment, the capacity of the program is seven places, “but if we have a lot of requests, we will be able to create a second group”, specifies Fannie Lemaire from the outset.
The first consists of a patient discharged from full hospitalization, three former patients of the cardiology day hospital and a person referred by their local doctor. For three weeks from Tuesday to Friday, they practice three 45-minute activities per morning. The typical half-day includes a session of adapted physical activities, another of physiotherapy and a therapeutic education workshop led by the nurse, the dietician or the psychologist. The team thus formed also includes a general practitioner and a social worker.
Adopt good behaviors
“This story of prevention is really what the public authorities and medicine are asking of us,” adds the director of the establishment. The objective is of course to get everyone to adopt good behavior to enable the community to make savings on the care thus avoided.
For patients recognized as having a long-term illness (ALD), the primary health insurance fund covers the entire cost. For others, the clinic specifies that the remainder can be supplemented by mutual insurance. The program is accessible to patients who live within a radius of less than 50 kilometers or a maximum 45-minute journey from the Clinique du Velay.
