PACO

Living Well with Rheumatoid Arthritis©

View the video to hear patients talk about their experience in the Living Well with Rheumatoid Arthritis Program©

The Living Well with RA Program: One Year Later

One of the goals of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Initiative is to research ways that can help RA patients live better with their disease. The new Living Well with Rheumatoid Arthritis© program is a research effort to evaluate the efficacy of a self-help program designed to help RA patients become more aware of emotional reactions, negative thoughts and beliefs, and behaviors that may be impacting their mood, level of anxiety, and outlook that can potentially exacerbate their pain. Program: Patients involved in the program attend individual meetings with a consultant and group meetings with 8-10 RA patients every other week for three months, and less frequently for another 6 months. The program employs various techniques, such as guided imagery and meditations, and journaling, to help patients access a core of “calm strength” inside. These techniques are used to help patients slow down and notice their own emotional states, body sensations, thoughts, and level of stress. They also learn to help themselves decrease negative thoughts, emotional distress, and physical tension by developing a relationship with themselves founded on compassion, curiosity, confidence and other aspects (connectedness, clarity, creativity, calm, courage) of that calm strength inside. Results from our randomized control study of the Living Well with RA program show that the intervention with its focus on active mindfulness and emotion regulation significantly improves disease activity and physical function in RA patients within 3 months. Individuals with prior depression benefited psychologically as well. Longer follow-up is necessary to study sustainability of the intervention.

  • Click here to read our published paper.

Contact: If you are interested in learning more about the program, please contact Adel Andemeskel at [email protected]

 

 

 

                               

No comments