Post written by Serena Hung, MD
A recent edition of
AARP The Magazine has an article on the Chronic Disease Self-Management Program developed at Stanford after a three-year long research study that showed a decrease in doctor visits and improved communication with physicians and an overall sense of empowerment for patients.
| This program was launched at Stanford in 1992 and was adopted nationally by Kaiser Permanente in 1998. Nationally, 5,000 workshop leaders have been trained. Here in Wisconsin the program is called Living Well With Chronic Conditions. It is offered all over the state at locations that can be found at the Greater Wisconsin Agency on Aging Resources Web site. |
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Though this is the Greater Wisconsin Area Aging Resources Web site, remember, you don’t have to be old to benefit from these classes.
Here’s several reasons that I think this program is right for my patients:
- We treat people with chronic illnesses — sometimes one patient may have several.
- These patients can have lots of issues around fear, depression, fatigue, stress & anxiety and pain. Living Well addresses all of this in an empowerment model. The patient creates his/her own unique “Action Plan.”
- This program is designed to mix people with a variety of chronic illnesses together with the thinking that many share the same issues and sometimes it’s good to realize that other people have challenges, too. The action plans are individual, anyway, so it’s not so important to be only with other people with Parkinson’s.
- Finally, our program coordinator, Vicki Conte has now been trained as a leader along with two Froedtert & The Medical College of Wisconsin program coordinators, Donna Johnson and Michelle Messling and three volunteers, Kate Olszewski, Lynn Ihlenfeld and Carol Ryback (thank you, ladies!).
So, we launched our first Living Well workshop on May 18 for our own patients! I had several patients attending this inaugural class. There will be a series of six-week sessions offered this year. For more information, see our
flyer. To sign up for the classes, please call 800-272-3666:
- Mondays, July 12 – Aug. 16; 8:30 – 11:00 am
- Mondays, Sept. 13 – Oct. 18; 8:30 – 11:00 am
- Mondays, Oct. 25 – Nov. 29; 8:30 – 11:00 am
- Mondays, Oct. 25 – Nov. 29; 8:30 – 11:00 am
- Mondays, Nov. 1 – Dec. 6; 1:30 – 4:00 pm
- Wednesdays, Nov. 3 - Dec. 8; 6:00 - 8:30 pm
Next time you are in clinic, ask your neurologist if this is something you should attend. My answer will always be “YES!”
If this all sounds as promising to you as it does to me, and you want to better understand how this evidence program began and what the research shows, check out the
Stanford Web site, or view
the video reproduced with permission from copyrighted material of The Permanente Medical Group, Inc., Northern California.