Caregiving in the Time of COVID

Caregiving in the Time of COVID By Kathleen Hoffman, PhD, MSPH with contributing writer/Inspire member Peigi Chace On Inspire alone, 41,000+ members have written over 19,000 posts about Coronavirus. An Inspire Coronavirus support group has been formed. Real world voice analysis of caregiver posts on Inspire reveal the desperation caregivers have been experiencing during the pandemic. my husband is on a vent in the hospital. I haven’t seen him since the ambulance came and drove off. They can’t get him off vent which, by the way, was introduced to break through blockage in the carotid artery to [...]

Listen to People Impacted by Rare Disease

Listen to People Impacted by Rare Disease By Kathleen D. Hoffman, PhD “The success (or failure) of the majority of rare disease drug development programmes rests on surrogate outcomes (e.g. laboratory measures, organ size) that may not reflect treatment benefits that patients value.”1 ~Morel and Canto Thomas Morel and Stefan Canto’s position paper from 2017 clearly describes the dilemma faced in rare disease research. Lab measures and organ size don’t speak to what patients with rare diseases experience, need or value. This focus on measures that are not meaningful impacts the development of rare disease treatments [...]