Workshops offers help for people with chronic illnesses

If you have a chronic illness, it's time to take charge of your health. The UI Family Care Center offers a chronic disease self-management workshop—Take Charge of Your Health—aimed at people with chronic health conditions and/or people living with someone with a chronic illness to better manage their health and their lives.

The workshop consists of six weekly highly interactive group sessions where participants assist and encourage each other to become better self-managers of their health and their lives. There are no lectures, no quick success formulas, no experts telling you what to do. The success of the Take Charge workshops comes from the people who attend them. The leaders are more facilitators than lecturers or instructors.

Jo Bowers, program coordinator, says the peer support empowers participants to take active control of their health. "The workshop is lay-focused and patient-centered."

"The goal of the program is to help people become effective self-managers," says Marcia Gaffney, RN, CDE, Patient Education Coordinator for UI Family Care Center. "They learn tools they can apply in their lives."

Each week, workshop participants set goals for the following week. Maybe it's how to eat better or maybe it's to walk around the block. Bowers said whatever the goal, it has to be action-specific, achievable, and increase their confidence. "Everyone has a buddy for the week and they call each other, encourage each other, and help each other achieve their goals. It's amazing how successful this program is because of this peer support and cooperation."

Workshop overview

Participants learn how to:

• Work with their physician
• Manage medication
• Personalize a fitness program
• Relax
• Deal with negative emotions
• Manage symptoms
• Eat healthy
• Set weekly goals
• Problem solve

Take Charge of Your Health workshop begins Wednesday, March 26, and runs six consecutive Wednesdays from 3 to 5:30 p.m. Each workshop has limited space.

For cost and registration information, call 319-384-8994.

What's the difference?

Acute illnesses usually begin abruptly, generally have one cause, and last a short time, such as strep throat. Most people with an acute illness can expect a return to normal health.

Chronic illnesses are different. They develop slowly, last long periods of time, are difficult to diagnose, and often are never cured. Long-term effects are difficult to predict—some conditions have few problems, others are episodic and can be controlled with medication, while others may severely limit a person's ability to lead a normal life. Examples of chronic diseases include diabetes, kidney diseases, heart diseases, lung diseases, depression, fibromyalgia, and arthritis.

The facts

• More than 100 million Americans have one or more chronic diseases. This number is expected to grow to 135 million by 2020
• Chronic illnesses account for 75 percent of health care spending
• 50 percent of Medicare beneficiaries over the age of 65 have three or more chronic conditions