Circling back to supported self-management

I’ve been writing a bit about supported self-management over the last few months. Partly because it’s topical given that medications and exercise offer very small reductions in pain and disability, and people do have lives outside of swallowing a pill and doing 3×10 reps! And partly because it is what we end up doing. It is the bulk of what people living with pain use to have lives. Self-management refers to a broad range of strategies people with pain use in their daily lives to help them live well. I’m aware of the multiple definitions that exist for self-management, and that the level of agreement isn’t great – and of course, throughout my discussion I always consider self-management to be supported. Supported by relationships with health professionals, friends and family, and within healthcare systems. Or perhaps not so much the latter. Drawing on Nicholas & Blyth’s commentary from 2016 (because it’s pretty good), the key elements of self-management are: being actively involved in daily actions to manage the effects of pain knowing about pain and the options for managing pain monitoring signs and symptoms and responding to these collaborating with health professionals and others to develop ways of living around pain From my perspective, some of the things that seem to be important in self-management are: Knowing how to set limits on demands/obligations from others. This is important because, whe...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - Category: Anesthesiology Authors: Tags: Chronic pain Coping strategies Pain conditions Professional topics Research Science in practice biopsychosocial Health self-management Source Type: blogs