{"id":31,"date":"2017-07-14T09:26:04","date_gmt":"2017-07-13T21:26:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/rtru\/?p=31"},"modified":"2017-07-14T09:26:04","modified_gmt":"2017-07-13T21:26:04","slug":"self-led-management-of-rheumatoid-arthritis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/rtru\/self-led-management-of-rheumatoid-arthritis\/","title":{"rendered":"Self-led management of rheumatoid arthritis"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The management of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has transformed in recent decades so the inflammatory arthritis is often well controlled with medications used in a treat-to-target strategy.\u00a0 This \u201cT2T\u201d strategy requires measurement of RA disease activity using validated measures and increasing treatment until disease remission or at least a low disease activity state is achieved.\u00a0 Currently the RA activity is determined during clinic visits however these are currently at arbitrary intervals so people are may be seen when they are well and appointments are not always available when people have increased arthritis activity and need medical help.\u00a0 Some data suggest the assessment of RA activity by people with RA correlates fairly well with the assessment of disease activity by health professionals. RTRU academic,\u00a0Dr Rebecca Grainger, has begun to\u00a0explore the possibility of the assessment and monitoring of RA being led by the person with the disease rather than the health system.\u00a0 In this new tech world, a phone app seem to be a good option to try. \u00a0Dr Grainger, in collaboration with her colleagues in RTRU, Hutt Hospital, and the Department of Information Science at University of Otago, first conducted a systematic review of all apps that could enable measurement of RA disease activity by people with RA and for those data to be transmitted to their rheumatology team for monitoring. \u00a0(This review can be downloaded for free here<\/a>.) \u00a0They found the 19 potentially useable app for longitudinal assessment of disease activity,which fell into two categories: 1) simple calculators of disease activity or 2) data tracking tools for people with RA. \u00a0However, no apps used all the required validated instruments and allowed for data transmission. One high quality app \u201cArthritis Power<\/a>\u201d\u00a0does a great job of longitudinal tracking of validated patient-reported outcomes (PRO\u2019s) and is used for patient-led research but is not suitable for use in \u201ctelerheumatology\u201d due to lack of measurement of tender and swollen joints, a key feature of RA activity measured by rheumatologists.<\/p>\n

Next steps in this research has been to \u00a0involve people with RA and rheumatology health\u00a0professionals to identify required features and functionality of an app for RA disease activity measurement, along with barriers to uptake and advantages of remote monitoring approach.\u00a0 With this information, Dr Grainger’s team has built an app and currently planning how this may be integrated into clinical practice.\u00a0 In parallel with this with, they have also co-designed with people with RA a training package of videos to teach joint count techniques.\u00a0 This will be evaluated in clinics in Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin in late 2017. Their goal is to enable people with RA to engage in their health care in ways that works for them while still providing appropriate assessment and oversight.\u00a0 Not necessarily \u201cself-management\u201d but \u201cself-led management:\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The management of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has transformed in recent decades so the inflammatory arthritis is often well controlled with medications used in a treat-to-target strategy.\u00a0 This \u201cT2T\u201d strategy requires measurement of RA disease activity using validated measures and increasing treatment until disease remission or at least a low disease activity state is achieved.\u00a0 Currently […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14239,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58987,44916],"tags":[58206,58203,58205,58204],"class_list":["post-31","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-erehab","category-self-management","tag-disease-monitoring","tag-phone-apps","tag-rheumatoid-arthritis","tag-rheumatology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/rtru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/rtru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/rtru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/rtru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14239"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/rtru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/rtru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/rtru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/rtru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/rtru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}