Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Alliance
Influencing policy and care together for best lifelong musculoskeletal health
By anonymous writer for the EULAR Edgar Stene Prize essay competition, runner-up in the UK national competition
Pain is not something that anyone wants. Chronic illness will rob so much of a person that often, we are only able to see it as stealing from life. For myself, I will never seek to deny the anguish of the first years of my illness with rheumatoid arthritis. I was a shadow, hiding in the corners and trying to find a way out of myself.…
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by Dr Chloe Stewart, health psychologist and national clinical advisor in personalised care, NHS England
It’s strange how certain moments in life stay with you, etched in your memory while others disappear forever. Sometimes the things we remember are not the big things but small and seemingly insignificant moments. I remember a distinct moment during my health psychology training, some twenty years ago now, when I realised just how much more needs to be done to ensure a shift in power between healthcare professionals and patients.…
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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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Guest blog by Chantal Lyons. This essay was the national selection entry winner for the UK for the Edgar Stene Prize 2022
Everything changed in the year I turned twenty-three. In the spring, I began to run, dragging my unfit body off the sofa and into the local park. In the summer, I began to dream of running the London Marathon like my father had. And in the autumn, I could no longer ignore the white-hot pain growing in my hips and back.…
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by Karen Middleton, chief executive of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy
The chief medical officer’s recommendation to strengthen on at least two days of the week is sometimes referred to as ‘the forgotten guideline’. It is frequently overlooked in favour of its more aerobic activity-based cousin, not least by healthcare professionals. As a consequence, too few people meet the guideline despite it being critical for quality of life and particularly for people living with a long-term condition.
The pandemic, which brought high levels of inactivity during lockdowns and other changes in behaviour, has exacerbated what is becoming known in healthcare circles as ‘the deconditioning challenge’. …
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Guest blog by Dr Arash Angadji, Chief Executive, Orthopaedic Research UK
I was talking to a PhD student who has recently received one of our fellowship grants to research the use of statistical modelling to help better predict patient outcomes, who told me, ‘I am part of that generation that has grown up with computers, so It feels natural to ask how we can we exploit this technology. We are all getting more on board with the idea of smart technology and wearable devices and questioning why we are not applying these technologies to our patients.’…
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Looking differently at leisure places as spaces for chronic pain managementby Ben Wilkins, CEO, Good Boost
15.5 million people in England live with chronic pain. Approximately 5.5 million (12% of the population) have high-impact chronic pain, where pain makes it an on-going challenge to take part in daily activities (Versus Arthritis, 2021). The main contributing factor for 8-in-10 people living with chronic pain are musculoskeletal conditions, such as osteoarthritis, back and neck pain. For people living with this, it’s not just a ‘ache in your back’ or a ‘twinge in your knee’, it’s an unrelenting and all-consuming part of everyday life.…
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by Adanna Williams, BestMSK Health Collaborative, Deputy Director
This week many of us are returning to work or starting our first week of 2022 having had a difficult Christmas period supporting and delivering services. I am mindful that the impact of focusing efforts to combat the Omicron variant has the potential to widen health inequalities. I have acknowledged how challenging this can be for those who need to access our services and those who are awaiting interventions.
In the BestMSK Healthcare Collaborative programme (an NHS England and Improvement programme), equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) continues to be a key priority.…
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Guest Blog by Professor Tony Woolf, Acting Chair and Secretary, Cornwall Arthritis Trust
Cornwall is well known for its coastline, beaches and mixture of rugged countryside with wooded valleys, great gardens and wonderful vistas. Poldark county. A visitor’s paradise but it has all the problems of rural and coastal communities with an economic dependency on agriculture and tourism and a low pay economy. Economic hardship is not immediately obvious but there are Cornish estates that rank among the highest in the league tables for multiple deprivation, and it is one of only two regions of the UK that was eligible for special assistance from Brussels as a result of having incomes per head less than 75% of the EU average.…
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Guest blog by Stephen Mack-Smith BSc, DC, MRCC. MEAC
Chair, North Wales ARMA
I received a letter about 14 years ago from my professional association looking for volunteers to join an umbrella group of patients and professionals with an interest in MSK problems. Funding for three years came from the English NHS, and fortune had it that owing to lobbying from North West Wales professionals within ARMA, a Pilot ARMA Network Group was formed in March 2007. It was the only one in Wales.…
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