Community Corner

St. Mary Medical Center Introduces 'Road To Healthier Living'

Self-Management Program For People Living With Chronic Conditions

St. Mary Medical Center is pleased to announce that it is now offering "Road to Healthier Living," a Chronic Disease Self-Management Program (CDSMP) to help individuals who have been diagnosed with a persistent medical condition better manage their health. The free interactive program consists of six weekly workshops held in local community settings, such as Senior Centers and senior housing complexes. Participants must attend all six of the two-and-a-half-hour sessions as each workshop covers a different aspect of disease management. 

This free program is open to anyone with a chronic condition, including but not limited to heart or obstructive pulmonary disease, stroke or cancer survivors, diabetes, arthritis, or asthma.  The workshops are facilitated by two trained leaders, one or both of whom is a non-health professional with a chronic disease. The sessions are dynamic and highly interactive, and are designed to enhance, not replace, regular medical treatment and disease-specific education, such as Better Breathers, Diabetes Education, and Cardiac Rehabilitation. The program offers support to people with a wide variety of health issues, emphasizing group participation and support, and providing solutions to the emotional challenges of living with a chronic illness. Components of the workshops include: techniques to deal with pain, frustration, and isolation; exercises to maintain and improve strength, flexibility, and endurance; appropriate use of medications; communicating effectively with family, friends, and health professionals; nutrition to support and improve health; and the ability to make informed decisions about treatment options.  Participants are encouraged to develop decision-making and problem-solving skills, and to learn to manage behaviors and resources to maintain active and fulfilling lives.

"Road to Healthier Living" was developed by the Division of Family and Community Medicine in the Department of Medicine at Stanford University. Content was developed based on focus groups, in which people with chronic diseases identified care-management information that was most important to them. According to the Stanford Patient Education Research Center, patients who participated in the program demonstrated improvements in exercise habits, cognitive symptom management, communication with physicians, health distress, fatigue, disability and social limitations. Previous studies have shown that participants also report an increase in energy and the ability to take part in more activities with fewer limitations.  

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Dr. Robert Mirsky, a St. Mary Internal Medicine physician, believes there is much value in an evidence-based program of self-motivated disease management, especially for patients with diabetes. "Many patients struggle with the psychosocial issues, such as frustration, anger and even depression, that go along with having a chronic disease," Dr. Mirsky said. "Learning ways to better manage their condition keeps them engaged and overall leads to better health for the patient."

St. Mary recruited 20 colleagues and community members, 19 of whom are personally affected by a chronic condition, to receive training as Peer Leaders for the Road to Healthier Living Workshops.  Some have found the training to have unexpected benefits.

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"I never expected to benefit personally from my involvement in the Road to Healthier Living training,” says Rita Demko, BSN, CPHM, a Cardiac Transition Nurse at St. Mary.  “I believed that I would be able to help others because of my role as a nurse at St. Mary Medical Center. What I found was that the program worked so well that the process of goal setting and group support had a positive effect on me. I am now a member of the gym, taking the ‘Strong Women’ classes twice a week and have lost enough weight to drop a dress size. My spouse was impressed on a recent vacation when I had no problem keeping up with him in spite of arthritis in my knees and a hip replacement."

Upcoming Sessions for early 2012 include:

  • January 12 to February 16, 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Bensalem Presbyterian Apartments in Levittown.
  • February 14 to March 20, 9:30 a.m. to noon, at the Falls Twp Senior Center in Fairless Hills.
  • April 4 to May 9, 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at the Northampton Senior Center in Richboro.
  • April  12 to May 17, 3 p.m. to  5:30 p.m. at the Bristol Township Senior Center in Bristol.
  • April 19  to  May 24, 9:30 a.m. to noon, at the Middletown Country Club in Langhorne.

To register for Road to Healthier Living or to receive more information, please call 215.710.5888. Registration is required to attend and space is limited.

Visit www.StMaryHealthcare.org/roadtohealth for more details.


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