With everyone now spending a lot more time at home, it could have a significantly negative impact on people’s physical activity levels. For people with musculoskeletal conditions, there are things that can be done to protect health and manage illness, to maintain good physical and mental health.
Provided people are well enough and following the latest government guidelines, exercise matters during this period and it’s more important than ever right now. It can help manage stress and anxiety too. Here are some specific resources, tailored for musculoskeletal health.
Arthritis Action has an online toolkit that enables people to find the resource most relevant. Includes physical and mental health: https://www.arthritisaction.org.uk/onlinesme
Chartered Society of Physiotherapy: Information on keeping active: https://www.csp.org.uk/public-patient/keeping-active-healthy
Faculty of Sport and Exercise Medicine (FSEM): If people are staying home but feel well and don’t have symptoms of Covid-19, it’s important to keep up levels of physical activity. This guide, from the contains some simple advice, as well as helpful Moving Medicine resources, to help stay active at home. https://www.fsem.ac.uk/staying-active-at-home/
Versus Arthritis has information pages on self-management that may also be useful for people with arthritis in self-isolation at this time: https://www.versusarthritis.org/about-arthritis/managing-symptoms/managing-your-pain/