Multiple Sclerosis: The at Your Fingertips Guide [Paperback]

"I found it easy to read and understand. My wife Pam, who is 47, could easily relate to much of the contents." -- Allan Quarterly, Somerset

"My overall impression is of excellence and comprehensiveness. The thoroughness of the approach is much needed, as MS is so complex and individual." -- Jan Hatch, Director of MS Services, MS Society

Muliple Sclerosis at Your Fingertips has been commended in the Popular Medicine Section of the British Medical Association Book Awards 2001 -- British Medical Association Book Awards 2001

Professor Ian Robinson, the senior author of this book, has been researching with people with MS and their families for twenty years, paying particular attention to their experiences and concerns. I emphasise WITH people with MS, for at the time I started to work in this area, it was common for people with MS to say that many doctors and others treated them as though they were 'cases of disease' rather than people. I have worked with, interviewed, and talked to many thousands of people with MS and their families in undertaking a wide range of studies of all aspects of people's lives with the condition. After considerable work, in 1998 I published a book called Multiple Sclerosis in the 'Experience of Illness' Series by Routledge Publishers. This book is still available, and although it was not intended as a 'self-help' book, many people have indicated to me that it contained some important ideas and approaches which they found very useful. Since the publication!
of that book I have undertaken much further work with people with MS in preparation for the Class Publisher's book. In particular I undertook a major series of studies of people with MS for the MS Society, in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, using new methods to try and uncover as many of the difficulties and experiences of MS as I could to write the book. Two major Reports were written on this study and I understand that the MS Society has used the Reports to reconsider its services and approach to people with MS. In fact when I first showed these Reports to people with MS they said to me that they felt it was the only time that someone had really captured their day to day experiences and difficulties, as well as their longer term hopes and fears of MS. These Reports have been the basis for the current book. I have tried to put together both professional advice and support in relation to the difficulties that people with MS experience, and also draw on the many suggestions that people with MS and their families have made to me in the course of our research. Of course people with MS and their families are experts in the ways in which they manage key aspects of their lives, thus it is important to draw on this expertise in a book such as this.

I hope that everyone who reads the book can gain something from it. I would of course be very happy to receive any suggestions or comments on its value, or indeed on any issue which it does not cover, or any issue which a reader feels could have been better managed. In this respect I should say that I am currently writing two further books on MS - one on more serious symptoms and problems related to the condition, and one on issues of family and other relationships and MS. I hope that the three books together will prove to be a helpful resource for people with MS and their families.

Professor Ian Robinson