Mind and Body 

The 4^th AStretch conference took place on November 14^th 2008 at the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, London. This conference with its topic ‘Mind and Body’ attracted 40 enthusiastic participants (primarily physiotherapists and a few occupational therapists) involved in the management of patients with Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS) from all around the UK. The conference was organised by two AStretch members Heather Harrison and Jane Martindale and was supported by NASS, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals Company and AStretch members.  

The conference started with a welcome speech by Claire Harris, chair of AStretch. Claire presented a brief synopsis about the aims of the conference and warmly welcomed the audience.  

The morning’s lectures were presented by Professor David Blake and Dr. Lance McCracken; both were from the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic diseases (RNHRD), Bath.  Prof. Blake, Professor of Bone and Joint medicine gave a comprehensive presentation on new thoughts on pain, clearly describing the different complex regional pain syndromes. Dr. McCracken, Consultant Clinical Psychologist, discussed Mindfulness, a practical and theoretically integrative ‘cognitive contextual approach’ recently invented for chronic pain management. Using this approach pain sufferers are taught to acknowledge their pain symptoms. This helps prevent ‘unnecessary pain avoidance’ behaviour development and helps the patients to focus on exposure-based treatment methods and accept coping techniques. Both lectures provided useful information for acknowledging chronic pain in AS patients and considered different treatment strategies in relation to the psychological aspects of pain management. The audience were also impressed with the practical demonstrations of relaxation, a key concept of this contextual method, using simple hand movements. 

A buffet Lunch offered opportunity for participants to network. Stalls held by Wyeth pharmaceuticals and NASS at Lunch provided additional information about outcome measures including the BATH indices. There was also an opportunity to order free patient information materials. 

Following lunch, Diane Aronson, Specialist Counsellor in Neuro-rehabilitation services also from the RNHRD illustrated the significance of understanding the effects of the impact of the long term disease (AS) on the patient’s Quality of Life (QOL). Diane described the different life domains including intra personal aspects such as self esteem and mood. She explained how counselling can meet the needs of such patients by helping them accept the disease by utilising coping skills. It is believed that this will enable the patients to lead a more satisfying life.

A discussion followed where a panel including Claire Harris, Jane Martindale, Jane Skerrett and Jenny Stockdale answered questions related to AS from the audience. This was found to be an informative and valuable session amongst attendees.

Jane Skerret was attending the AStretch conference for the second time since becoming the NASS director. She gripped the audience by providing an overview into the workings of NASS. Present and future changes within NASS were discussed and queries from the audience were clarified. 

The final lecture of the day was by Jenny Stockdale, Clinical Specialist physiotherapist from Blackpool who presented the research work completed as part of her MSc course. This interesting lecture focussed on the impact of anti-TNF medication on the quality of life (QOL) in patients with AS and mentioned the different stages of the research work that had been undertaken.  There is now evidence that the new hero anti-TNF’ drugs is improving patient’s QOL. The results of this valuable research work certainly identified the need for maintaining accessibility to the drug.  

The conference ended with Claire Harris expressing her gratitude on behalf of AStretch to the speakers, audience and conference organisers Heather Harrison and Jane Martindale  

In Summary

In order to improve QOL, patients with long-term conditions such as AS need to be managed employing a holistic approach, with the emphasis on managing chronic pain symptoms. This conference was successful in offering exceptional inspiration for transferring this ‘mind and body’ awareness to health professionals. 

The audience provided excellent feedback and expressed their interest in attending future AS topic/conferences. For more details about future conferences, please see the website www.astretch.co.uk.  

 

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