Arthritis News & Musculoskeletal News from ARMA's Members

New Webinar: Managing child bearing with chronic MSK disease

Managing women of child bearing potential living with chronic inflammatory rheumatic disease
Wednesday 3 April 2019, 2.30pm-3.30pm

This webinar will cover why it is important to appropriately plan a patient’s pregnancy journey, to minimise disease activity to ensure an optimal outcome for mother and baby, and how healthcare professionals can ensure they initiate conversations around family planning at an early stage.

Disease onset for patients living with chronic inflammatory disease (RA, PSA, axSpA and PSO), tends to overlap with peak female reproductive ages.…

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Guest blog: How your local pharmacy can help

by Leyla Hannbeck, Director of Pharmacy at NPA

People living with musculoskeletal conditions are often taking several prescribed and over-the-counter medicines, so come into frequent contact with their local pharmacist. For example, someone with arthritis may be taking Co-Codamol for pain relief, patches for heat therapy and amitriptyline for depression. (ARMA’s policy paper on mental health is a cogent reminder about the complex interplay of mental and physical conditions).

But even frequent visitors to pharmacies may not be aware of the full range of NHS services available there.…

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Stigma and pain – new survey

Pain Alliance Europe launched a new survey on stigma and chronic pain. One of the main “fights” PAE is leading is for the pain patient to be heard, believed and understood. The most recent survey developed deals with stigma related to chronic pain and will be open until the 1st of March, 2019.

Besides the many physical challenges that chronic pain inflicts, patients deal with the psychological burden of having a condition they do not deliberately choose to have.

To understand better to which extent stigma is a part of the illness pack in the life of a chronic pain patient, Pain Alliance Europe has directed its questions for 2019’s survey about chronic pain to the way patients perceive and are affected by the subjectivity of other categories from society that they come in contact with during their pain journey.…

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Open Call for Innovative Medicine

FOREUM – Foundation for Research in Rheumatology – announces a programme to support innovative concepts to improve the diagnosis and treatment of Rheumatic Musculoskeletal Diseases (RMDs). This programme is designed as an open research call seeking for the best and most visionary approaches to better understand RMDs and to improve the life of patients with RMDs.

As such, the call is not limited to a specific disease within the RMD spectrum but rather intends to target fundamentally new concepts that have potential to gain concept-changing insights into RMDs.…

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GIRFT spinal surgery

Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) national report calls for short-term pain relief to be replaced with rehabilitation.

GIRFT say that replacing short-term pain relief injections with long-term physical and psychological rehabilitation programmes could help tens of thousands more patients cope with debilitating back pain, in their new report on spinal surgery.

See the spinal surgery report page for more details.

Good design for arthritis – Room to Manoeuvre

Good design touches our lives every day. From the cars we drive to the beds we sleep in, the equipment and products that we use have been constructed to make our lives easier. But often the design decisions fail to take into account those with physical limitations.

Versus Arthritis is concerned that people with arthritis are missing out because designers have not thought about the challenges they face.

As part of the Room to Manoeuvre campaign, VA want more people to understand the impact of arthritis, and to work together to create solutions so that the equipment and spaces people with arthritis use are more effective.…

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WORD Day – 18 March 2019

The first ever annual WORD Day, “WOrld Young Rheumatic Disease Day” takes place on the 18 March in 2019.

Jointly inaugurated by PReS (www.PRES.EU) and the parent/patient association ENCA (www.ENCA.org), the objectives of this day are to raise parental and professional awareness of these illnesses. Raising awareness of paediatric rheumatic diseases among health care providers will help speed up diagnosis, especially of rarer diseases.

WORD pediatric day is also directed at the wider public, since it is important to raise social awareness to the needs of children with rheumatic illnesses.…

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All Our Health MSK Chapter

Public Health England added a musculoskeletal chapter to its All Our Health guidance to help health professionals prevent ill health and promote wellbeing in their everyday practice.

This guidance helps front-line health and care staff promote the benefits of maintaining good musculoskeletal health with a focus on prevention, early detection and treatment.

PHE also recommend important actions that managers and staff holding strategic roles can take.

All our Health is a PHE led ‘Call to Action’ for all health and care professionals to embed and extend prevention, health protection and promotion of wellbeing and resilience into practice.…

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Resource to support GPs in identifying work modifications – user testing

By Steve Boorman, Chair, Council for Work and Health

Work and Health Unit commissioned resource to support GPs in identifying work modifications.

You may be aware from previous contacts and, or consultations, that the Work and Health Unit (WHU), as part of its “Improving Lives” strategic programme, has identified a need to provide additional support resources to Doctors, to help them in supporting patients to identify work adjustments to improve workability and improve recovery.

The Council for Work and Health was commissioned to research and develop this work and a dedicated researcher was used to review published literature, collate existing available resources and to develop content.…

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Consultation on new Chiropractic Quality Standard: Osteoporosis

The Royal College of Chiropractors has opened a consultation on a draft Osteoporosis Quality Standard and is seeking the views of all stakeholders including interested organisations, chiropractors, other healthcare professionals, patients and the public.

Comments are invited on any aspect of the document including its relevance and applicability to the chiropractic profession, the achievability of the standards described in the quality statements, the utility of the quality statements in terms of promoting best care, the document’s accuracy and validity in terms of the evidence base and the clarity of the content to practitioners, patients and other stakeholders.…

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