Managing Your Chronic Illness: Information for Patients

Active involvement in your own care is critical. You need to understand your condition well enough to take some responsibility for its management. You can and should be involved in decisions about your treatment.

Traditionally, the doctor's role has been to diagnose and prescribe, while the patient's role has been to comply with the doctor's orders. This approach may still work for acute problems, but is far less effective in dealing with a chronic disease. Effective management of a chronic disease requires a partnership between you and your doctor.

Your doctor's role in this partnership is to provide medical advice, offer treatment options and recommend resources. (See "Working with Your Doctor" under Specific Diseases.)

Your role is to monitor your symptoms, report them accurately, and manage the disease on a day-to-day basis.

Self-Management: Living Well with Chronic Disease

Self-management is a term used to describe the decisions and actions an individual takes to cope with or improve their health. It includes managing aspects of their condition, such as pain, fatigue and medication, and using health promotion strategies such as diet, exercise and stress reduction.

Self-management helps people develop skills in maintaining and improving their own well-being and gain greater independence and confidence in dealing with the physical and emotional challenges of a long-term illness.

The Arthritis Society of Canada has an excellent Web site with information on a wide range of self-management skills and strategies useful for people with any chronic illness. See Tips for Living Well.

The Chronic Disease Self-Management Program

Self-management programs led by people with chronic conditions have developed over the last 20 years. These programs go beyond patient education about an illness to looking at how a chronic illness affects a person's daily life. The leading authority in this field is Professor Kate Lorig of Stanford University, California. The Chronic Disease Self-Management Program (CDSMP) developed at Stanford recognizes the need for people with chronic illness to deal with common issues such as pain management, stress and coping skills for use on a daily basis. This program does not replace traditional patient education provided by doctors or other health professionals; it is a complementary support system and helps reinforce traditional patient education.

CDSMP is provided through teams of trained volunteers who, themselves, have a chronic illness. In the program, participants get new information, learn new skills and abilities, and develop new ways to manage and cope with chronic conditions. Participants give and receive support from others who are experiencing similar health conditions, and realize they are not alone - that the difficulties they are experiencing are also experienced by others.

The CDSMP teaches skills in the following areas:

• developing a suitable exercise program
• cognitive symptom management
• nutrition management
• breathing exercises
• problem solving
• use of medication
• communicating with family, friends and health care providers
• dealing with emotions such as anger and depression

The Arthritis Self-Management Program

Developed by the B.C. Arthritis Society, this program is available in selected communities in B.C. Facilitated by trained volunteers, the program is offered in six sessions, two hours once a week for six weeks, and provides people with the knowledge and skills to help them manage their arthritis. The format of the class includes lecture, brainstorming, discussion and problem solving. To find out more about where and when classes are available, see Arthritis Self-Management Program.

Last Revised: December 17, 2007