Self-management
We believe that self management skills are key to living the life you want.
What is self management?
Successful self management is about working in partnership with your family, friends, volunteers, peers as well as professionals to find the best route to your wellbeing. While your health professional will be knowledgeable in the field of medicine you are the expert in how you are. Only you know how it affects your life, and what matters to you in your life.
Being diagnosed and living with a long term condition can create a sense of loss of control. Often there is no simple cure. How you feel can be influenced by many factors including lifestyle, environmental, psychological factors and how well you are supported, or not.
Long term conditions are medical conditions that a person has lived with for an extended period of time. They include conditions like diabetes, chronic pain, asthma, arthritis, depression, heart failure and multiple sclerosis. They have many causes and their symptoms can be variable.
Self management guide and plan
Part of the self management process requires commitment from you. To guide you through this we have produced a toolkit and wellbeing plan which provide some simple tips, tools and techniques which will help. It explains some of the way you can set goals to improve and develop how you take care yourself.
Most people with a long term condition have learned how to live with their condition and self manage without realising it, you probably already know quite a few of the techniques. By trying some of the techniques that others have found helpful you will hopefully find better ways of living with your symptoms and feel more in control of your condition and live a fuller life.
Managing your long term condition is hugely liberating. As well as benefiting your physical and mental health, it can help in all aspects of life: aiding relationships, reducing workplace stresses, or helping you get back into work, reducing social isolation, to name but a few. Learning about your condition is the first step in self-management – in particular, how your condition affects you. This can help you to predict when you might experience symptoms, and to consider how to work around them.
Chronic Pain Toolkit
The Pain Tool Kit helps patients living with persistent pain
(The tools in this handy toolkit can be applied to ANY OTHER long term condition as well)
ChangePain.com
Change Pain Toolkit PDF
A persistent pain problem can be difficult to understand and manage on an everyday basis. The Pain Toolkit is a simple information booklet that could provide you with some handy tips and skills to support you along the way to manage persistent pain.
It is meant as a handy guide to help you get started.
Pete Moore, who has persistent pain, asthma and osteoarthritis, has put these tools together with the help of friends, family and health care professionals – special acknowledgement to the Bradford pain Rehabilitation Programme team and NHS Kirklees PCT*.
Pete Moore, has an interactive website and he produces a regular newsletter. Find out much more here: www.paintoolkit.org
Regular PTK workshops are being held throughout Argyll and Bute.