{"id":6978,"date":"2026-01-30T20:39:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T19:39:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/europeanspas.eu\/?p=6978"},"modified":"2026-02-01T20:41:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T19:41:00","slug":"video-interview-with-prof-patrick-carpentier-president-of-espa-medical-commission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/europeanspas.eu\/video-interview-with-prof-patrick-carpentier-president-of-espa-medical-commission\/","title":{"rendered":"Video interview with Prof. Patrick Carpentier, President of ESPA Medical Commission"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The European Spa Association plays a key role in unifying standards and sharing experience across countries<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The importance of medical spas and health resorts within European healthcare is growing, especially as chronic diseases affect up to a quarter of the population. Traditional medicine alone cannot meet the long-term needs of these patients, while health resorts offer a unique combination of physical therapy, rehabilitation, well-being, and patient education, making them an effective complement to classical treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For medical spas to be fully integrated and recognised, Prof. Carpentier stresses the need for rigorous scientific evidence. Treatments must be evaluated with methodologies comparable to pharmacological research &#8211; randomised studies, control groups, and blinded assessments wherever possible. Only strong scientific validation will convince insurance providers, ensure affordability for all income groups, and prevent spa therapies from becoming a luxury accessible only to the wealthy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=q0IkpcVxEew\">Listen to the interview >>><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhile artificial intelligence may support healthcare delivery, it cannot replace the human relationship essential in chronic disease care. Europe\u2019s diversity in spa practices is both a challenge and an opportunity, and the European Spa Association plays a key role in unifying standards and sharing experience across countries,\u201d says Carpentier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Looking ahead, Carpentier sees two priorities: significantly more research and better education for medical professionals, including integrating balneotherapy into medical training.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\"><blockquote><p><strong>\u201cIf spa medicine is to be more than a luxury, we must prove its efficacy with the same scientific rigor as classical medicine &#8211; only then will it become accessible to all who need it, not just the wealthy.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><cite><strong><br><em>Prof. Patrick Carpentier<\/em><\/strong><\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The European Spa Association plays a key role in unifying standards and sharing experience across countries The importance of medical spas and health resorts within European healthcare is growing, especially as chronic diseases affect up to a quarter of the population. Traditional medicine alone cannot meet the long-term needs of these patients, while health resorts [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[210,110,61,102],"tags":[646,656,246,551,655],"class_list":{"0":"post-6978","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-balneology","8":"category-interviews","9":"category-news","10":"category-working-groups","11":"tag-balneotherapy","12":"tag-chronic-deseases","13":"tag-medical-spas","14":"tag-patrick-carpentier","15":"tag-standards"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/europeanspas.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/europeanspas.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/europeanspas.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeanspas.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeanspas.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6978"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/europeanspas.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6983,"href":"https:\/\/europeanspas.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6978\/revisions\/6983"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeanspas.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/europeanspas.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeanspas.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeanspas.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}