Who Treats Osteoarthritis?
While health care professionals can prescribe or recommend treatments to help you manage your arthritis, the real key to living well with the disease is you. Research shows that people with osteoarthritis who take part in their own care report less pain and make fewer doctor visits. They also enjoy a better quality of life. Living well and enjoying good health despite arthritis requires an everyday lifelong commitment. Following are six habits worth committing to: 1. Get educated: To live well with osteoarthritis, it pays to learn as much as you can about the disease. Three kinds of programs help people understand osteoarthritis, learn selfcare, and improve their good-health attitude. They are: • patient education programs • arthritis self-management programs • arthritis support groups. These programs teach people about osteoarthritis, its treatments, exercise and relaxation, patient and health care provider communication, and problem solving. Research has shown that people who partici
