Author: Garreth

Consortium to transform leisure facilities into MSK hubs

Good Boost introduces a UK health pilot aiming to explore how the untapped potential of leisure facilities could save millions from painful MSK conditions and billions for NHS.

  • Good Boost, ukactive, Orthopaedic Research UK, ESCAPE-pain and Arthritis Action have formed a health and fitness consortium to research transforming leisure facilities into MSK hubs
  • The project will design, develop and deploy a ‘blueprint’ that includes upskilled leisure teams, AI technology and new patient pathways that aim to improve MSK outcomes and reduce NHS waiting lists
  • UKRI provides £1.4m funding to consortium as part of Healthy Ageing Challenge
  • 20 million people in UK have MSK conditions, costing the NHS £5bn a year

A new health and fitness consortium has launched a two-year research project to investigate how to transform leisure facilities into musculoskeletal (MSK) hubs which can be accessed in every community.…

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NRAS Wellbeing Courses

wellbeing scheduleNRAS launched their Wellbeing Courses in May and owing to their success the next set are now being released.

The NRAS Wellbeing Courses starting within the next month are: 

  • Tripudio: Gentle form of exercise performed to different genres of music. 
  • Yoga: Breathing exercises to help support day-to-day exercises, designed to help create a little mobility and strength throughout the entire body.
  • Tapping for Pain Management: Gently tap the various acupressure points with techniques aiming to relax the mind and body. 

The courses consist of either two or five/six weeks in length, meeting once a week online.…

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Arthritis: the impact on daily life

Arthritis Action launches report on working aged people with arthritis

Arthritis Action has launched new research with YouGov to explore the experiences of people of working age in Great Britain who live with osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis. YouGov carried out an online survey of 2,120 people aged 25 to 65 living with the conditions, comparing the results to a similar survey conducted by YouGov (for Arthritis Action), in 2018 to see how their situations have changed since the pandemic.

The results gave a good picture of people’s concerns, the impact of arthritis on their daily lives, and how they felt they could be helped further by employers and support services.…

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NRAS JIA Awareness Week

13-17 June 2022

Less than a month to go – NRAS is running their first ever JIA Awareness Week. The campaign is all about #SameJIADifferentDay as it can be very frustrating for children, young people and even adults with JIA to keep explaining that JIA is a fluctuating condition, and some days are good, and some are bad. No two days are the same living with JIA.

Please do get involved throughout the week, by:

  • Share, like, retweet #SameJIADifferentDay posts, it makes a big difference
  • You can add a social media frame to your profile: NRAS has a ’JIA Awareness Week’ one and a ‘Wear Purple for JIA’ one.
…

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‘Medicines in RA’ – new module launching in SMILE soon

SMILE-RA is a unique and engaging e-learning experience for people with RA and their families who want to understand more about RA, and its treatments. SMILE-RA has a modular approach to learning, so each module is on a particular theme or subject and takes between 20 mins and half an hour to complete.

There is an intuitive interface that makes it easy to use and navigate your way around. After registering and completing the Foundation module which includes baseline evaluation questions, you can then direct your own learning experience and choose whichever modules are of interest to explore next.…

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NOA Excellence in Orthopaedics Awards launches – nominations open

The National Orthoapedic Alliance (NOA) recently launched the NOA Excellence in Orthopaedics Awards. The awards recognise NOA member organisations, projects and teams that have distinguished themselves through exemplary contributions, influence and commitment to transforming services across orthopaedics – both clinically and non-clinically.

2022 will be the inaugural year for the awards which will take place on the evening of 19 October 2022 following the NOA Annual Members’ Conference. Find out more on the NOA website. If you’re from an NOA member organisation, you can nominate now. …

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Tiny Magic Moments: how treating my RMD has influenced my hopes for the future

By Anna Wilson – EULAR Edgar Stene Prize essay competition, runner-up in the UK national competition

After almost nine years of increasing intensity, the pain throughout my body was becoming unbearable. I vividly remember arriving at my doctor’s appointment that day to receive my blood test results, my fingers tightly clutching a list of symptoms.

“I know it sounds like I’m a hypochondriac,” I began awkwardly, “but I get inflamed eyes, rib cage pain, lower back spasms and stabbing in my hips that is so bad I struggle to walk in the morning.…

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Making support for people in pain a reality

Media coverage of MSK conditions and pain is rare. Good coverage even more uncommon. So it was great to see the BBC focus on chronic pain on 11 May. A week earlier, coverage of the NICE draft guidelines on managing arthritis generated headlines such as “Exercise instead of taking painkillers, arthritis sufferers told.” Unsurprisingly this resulted in outcry from those who rely on pain medication to manage their arthritis, especially those who really need surgery but are on unacceptably long waiting lists after the pandemic.…

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Primary and community MSK metrics

The BestMSK Health programme has collaboratively codeveloped, with stakeholders and lived experience partners, draft high-level metrics to support the measurement of primary and community MSK service delivery.

MSK professionals, analysts, leads/managers, commissioners or anyone working in the improvement of MSK services are encouraged to provide their feedback on these recommendations through a quick online survey, which is now open.

Feedback is welcomed from MSK professionals, analysts, MSK leads and managers, commissioners, MSK lived experience partners and anyone who is involved in system-wide transformation and improvement of MSK services.…

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Core Skills in Musculoskeletal Care course

Develop your knowledge and confidence to effectively manage your MSK patients, from diagnosis to treatment and ongoing management of their condition(s).

This online course is split into four two-hour sessions:

  1. Introduction to musculoskeletal conditions, osteoarthritis, inflammatory arthritis and fibromyalgia
  2. Low back pain and sciatica
  3. Lower limb (with emphasis on the knee)
  4. Upper limb (with emphasis on the shoulder)

Wednesday 15, 22, 29 June and 6 July, 6-8:30pm on all four dates (Delegates must be available to attend all four sessions)

Cost: £135

For more information about the course please visit the Versus Arthritis website or email professionalengagement@versusarthritis.org…

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