Airing Pain 28: Self-Management: Pacing and communication

Learning to manage pain with Arthritis Care’s self-management programme

This programme was funded by Pain Concern’s supporters and friends.

In the previous edition of Airing Pain we featured the work of the charity, Arthritis Care, and, following up from that programme, Paul Evans looks into their self-management programme, the Challenging Pain Workshop, which is available to people with any kind of chronic pain, not just arthritis. We listen in to the course’s volunteer tutors and participants as they discuss learning to pace activities and improving communication skills. We also hear from Rachel Gondwe about how volunteers gain from sharing their experiences of pain and about a trial run by Arthritis Care in partnership with a health authority to measure the effectiveness of self-management programmes.

Issues covered in this programme include: Pacing, communicating pain, arthritis, volunteering, workshop, confidence, co-morbidities, fatigue, breathing exercises, peer support, physiotherapy, pain toolkit, weight loss, relationships, family and patient voice.

Contributors:

• Jill Davies and Herbie Roley, Challenging Pain Workshop leaders
• Rachel Gondwe, Training Services coordinator with Arthritis Care
• Kirstine MacDowall, volunteer tutor at Arthritis Care
• Toyin Onasanya, Arthritis Care’s South England training administrator.