Carrie Hersh, DO, MSc: Shared Decision Making in Multiple Sclerosis

“It’s becoming increasingly more important to use shared decision making, or personalized treatment choices, because there are just so many different therapies that are available.”

When it comes to decision making regarding therapeutics for patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), the trend among neurologists has been to utilize a more personalized approach which incorporates the patient into the process. Referred to as shared decision-making, this allows for physicians to take into account a number of influencing factors—aside from the effectiveness of the therapy—that may impact which of the growing number of disease-modifying therapies would be best for a given patient.

Carrie Hersh, DO, MSc, an MS neurologist at Cleveland Clinic’s Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, spoke with NeurologyLive^® at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers (CMSC), May 28-June 1, in Seattle, Washington, about this process. Additionally, she shared her insight into the specific facets that should be taken into account when making these decisions, such as tolerability, affordability, and patient-related factors, such as the desire to start family planning.

Hersh also discussed how to best go about comparing and contrasting disease-modifying therapies, and which measurements and outcomes will be the best to utilize in clinical trials going forward and when collecting real-world data on the effectiveness of these therapies.

For more coverage of CMSC 2019, click here.