Webinar – Women and Axial Spondyloarthritis: diagnosis and management

Friday 9 October 2020, 12.30 – 1.30pm

Men with Axial SpA are more likely than women to experience changes to the bones and fusion, and thus they can be picked up using x-ray. Women are more likely than men to experience inflammation rather than fusion, which is visible on MRI but not on x-ray.

  • What are the implications for diagnosis of axial SpA in a woman?
  • What do GPs and First Contact MSK practitioners need to consider?
  • How do responses to biologics differ?


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HMSA – Coronavirus Shielding: Advice for re-joining the world

This blog post from the HMSA’s Occupational Therapist, Jo Southall, provides an overview of strategies to deal with the not entirely comfortable idea of returning to an uncertain world when you’ve been shielding for some time, and is packed with ideas about how to ease that transition.

Jo is responsible for team wellbeing at the HMSA and also runs a monthly #HMSALiveOT show from the HMSA Facebook page at 7pm on the third Thursday of each month, taking your Occupational Therapy questions live or in advance.…

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Conference speakers

Thinking Differently for MSK Health

purple in field of orange

Speakers

Andrew BennettAndrew Bennett

National Clinical Director MSK, NHS England

The role of the ICS and Place
in MSK service improvement
– National perspective slides

Andrew is National Clinical Director for Musculoskeletal Conditions for NHS England and Improvement, and a Consultant Physiotherapist at Sutton Health and Care Alliance, Epsom and St Helier NHS Trust. He qualified in 2000 in Leeds, completing specialty training across London as well as a PGcert, PGdip and MSc.…

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MSK leading the way

by Sue Brown, CEO, ARMA

It’s been fantastic over the last few months to work with ARMA members to rise to the challenge of the Covid-19 pandemic. We now have to rise to a new challenge – resetting MSK services to be more personalised and to use shared decision making to ensure people receive the right treatment efficiently and effectively. ARMA’s vision for MSK and that discussed at the NHS England MSK leadership meetings are remarkably similar. Making that vision a reality will take the combined effort of all of us.…

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Women and young people hit hardest by lockdown

Study suggests women and young people have been hardest hit psychologically by coronavirus lockdown

A new study, published in The Lancet Psychiatry, has looked at the potential impact of the coronavirus pandemic on population mental health.

  • It found that there was an overall increase in mental distress in people aged 16 years and older in the UK.
  • This did not affect all groups equally, with some subgroups showing marked increases. Factors most strongly linked with mental health deterioration were those associated with pre-existing health inequalities, such as gender and age.


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Gold Standard Time to Diagnosis

Help end the 8.5-year delay in the diagnosis of axial SpA (AS)

A new programme that aims to end the 8.5-year delay to diagnosis for people living with axial Spondyloarthritis (axial SpA) was launched on 15 July 2020.

Gold Standard Time to Diagnosis will set the world’s first Gold Standard to reduce the average time to diagnosis in axial SpA (AS) to just one year. The consultation process, which is phase one of the programme, was launched at the All-Party Parliamentary Group on axial Spondyloarthritis.…

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Launch of brand new JIA-at-NRAS website

Since 2019, NRAS has been working hard on improving information provision to members, supporters and the wider Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA) community. 

The latest publications, updates and activities for JIA-at-NRAS represent a huge support resource for those who need it. A priority for NRAS – and an expectation from those they support – is an easy-to-navigate, user friendly, informational website, because this is the primary route for people to discover the organisation.

NRAS is excited to launch the new and improved JIA-at-NRAS website!

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NICE publishes new guidelines on elective surgery, planned care

A new COVID-19 rapid guideline: arranging planned care in hospitals and diagnostic services NICE guideline [NG179] has been released by NICE. The publication makes recommendations for how these services should be organised to balance the risks associated with covid-19 and the potential harms that could arise from delays in elective treatment and diagnostic procedures.

The guidance states that people having planned care involving any form of anaesthesia and sedation should follow social distancing and hand hygiene measures for 14 days prior to admission – a change from 14 days of self-isolation.…

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Versus Arthritis launches ‘Impossible to Ignore’ campaign

People with arthritis can’t ignore their pain. Let’s make sure the Government doesn’t, either. 

This is why Versus Arthritis has launched the Impossible to Ignore campaign, calling on politicians and policy-makers to address the needs of people with arthritis. Now, your support is needed to demand change.

For many people, lockdown has made living with arthritis even harder. With appointments, treatments and joint replacement surgery delayed, people with arthritis face worsening pain and impacts to their physical and mental health that are impossible to ignore. …

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