Research | ARMA

LUPUS UK publish results of their member survey

The recently published results of a LUPUS UK survey have revealed that lupus patients in the UK experience an average delay of 6.4 years between developing initial symptoms and reaching a diagnosis. In addition, the survey showed no change in this delay to diagnosis over recent decades despite efforts to improve identification and diagnosis of the disease.

The results of this survey, which was a collaboration between Manchester researchers and LUPUS UK, demonstrate that further work is needed to raise awareness of lupus amongst both healthcare professionals and patients in the UK to recognise the early symptoms and signs of the disease.…

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Exercise venue preferences for ESCAPE-pain: We want your views

ESCAPE-pain is a 6 week rehabilitation programme for individuals with knee and hip osteoarthritis which aims to educate participants on their condition, self-management and coping strategies as well as exercise. The Health Innovation Network, the Academic Health Science Network, has been working hard for the past 3+ years to spread the adoption of ESCAPE-pain across the U.K, and recently, has been awarded a grant by Sport England as part of their ‘Active Ageing’ project to target inactive adults in particular and increase access to the programme.…

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Participants sought for study on pain and Medicines Use Review

Accredited pharmacists in England, Wales and Northern Ireland can offer an enhanced patient service called a Medicines Use Review (MUR). This structured review is free to patients, and is designed primarily to help them manage their medicines more effectively. Little is known about how often this service is used for people living with pain. We know little about pharmacists’ and pain patients’ views of what happens in pain-related MURs, or why they don’t engage, and what they would like to happen.…

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New National Osteoporosis Society Research Strategy to launch 2nd October

The National Osteoporosis Society is pleased to announce that it will shortly be launching a new Research Strategy and grants funding round. The upcoming launch reiterates the continued and central importance that research has within the Charity.

The new strategy is the result of extensive consultation with academics, clinicians and people living with osteoporosis, and clearly outlines what the Charity wants to achieve through research over the next five to ten years, and how it plans to achieve it.

Whilst you’ll have to wait until 2nd October to find out all the details for our exciting new Research Strategy, for now we can share with you the strategy’s three main goals:

To ensure that we support research that makes a real difference – by working closely with others to agree what research should be carried out in the future.

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BASEM members benefit from new orthopaedic research

BASEM is excited to launch its new partnership with OrthoEvidence (OE).

OE is the global source for summarized, high quality orthopaedic research from around the globe and the service will provide BASEM members with premium access to summaries and critical appraisals of high quality orthopaedic research making them part of a growing community of more than 37,000 practitioners who rely on the highest-quality orthopaedic research to help improve their practice. 60% of OE members surveyed last year even stated that they had changed their practice as a result of reading OE reports.…

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Smartwatch health study for the over 50s with knee pain

Cloudy and the University of Manchester are recruiting for a pioneering smartwatch study called Koalap (knee osteoarthritis: linking activity and pain) which starts in September. They are looking at the link between activity and knee pain.

This is part of the hugely successful Cloudy with a Chance of Pain study, which used citizen science phone app data to explore the relationship between weather and chronic pain conditions. Over 13,000 people took part and we featured on BBC’s “Trust Me, I’m a Doctor”, BBC Breakfast and ITV News, as well as all national newspapers.…

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Guest Blog: NHS Staff Survey – Looking after our healthcare staff

By Chris Graham, Chief Executive, Picker Institute Europe

Arguments about the pressures on the NHS at a system level are well rehearsed; rising demand, financial restraint, and challenges around staffing numbers are well reported. But what of the impact of caring on healthcare professionals as people?

The NHS Staff Survey is an annual survey that aims to help providers to understand how it feels to work in the health service. In 2016, it recorded the experiences of more than 423,000 members of NHS staff – and provides fascinating insight into the health and wellbeing of NHS staff.…

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Management guideline for adults with Primary Sjögren’s Syndrome

British Society for Rheumatology publishes first UK guideline for the management of adults with Primary Sjögrens Syndrome

The first UK guideline on the care of adults with Primary Sjögren’s Syndrome has been published today by the British Society of Rheumatology. The guidelines are accredited by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) which recognises robust, evidence-based and critically evaluated high-quality processes applied to developing a clinical guideline.

Clinical guidelines are particularly important for patients with less common conditions like Sjögren’s because health professionals can lack confidence in managing treatment and care.…

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Please distribute the new NRAS Work Survey

The National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society (NRAS) launched its new Work Survey last week. This will investigate the experiences of people with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) and Adult Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA), any impact it has had on people’s ability to work and how it affects people in the workplace.

The research will allow NRAS to draw comparisons with its previous Work Survey 10 years ago and enable future campaigning to focus on matters that affect people with RA the most at work.…

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Mental wellbeing research

Arthritis Care published new research to launch our Wake up to arthritis campaign during Arthritis Care Week. The report, Hidden impact: Arthritis and mental wellbeing, revealed the huge emotional toll of living with arthritis. Findings are based on over 3,000 survey responses from people with arthritis.

Findings include:

79 per cent feel anxious or depressed because of their arthritis
89 per cent worry about how arthritis will affect their future independence
Four in five (80 per cent) have given up activities they enjoy
Half (50 per cent) feel isolated or lonely because of their arthritis

Find out more about this research and read the full report here.…

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