CALGARY – Alberta Health Services has launched a new series of workshops to help those dealing with chronic disease.
Dubbed the “Better Choice, Better Health” workshop, the self-managed program offers six weekly sessions to help those dealing with a variety of conditions including diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, asthma, high blood pressure, chronic pain and obesity. The workshops are available in several communities and are led by trained volunteers and AHS staff, many of whom also live with chronic disease.
Mary Ann Britt is one of those volunteers. She formally attended Calgary-based chronic pain management seminars to help her deal with her Type 2 diabetes. Wanting to help others like her, she has been trained as a facilitator to take part in the Better Choices, Better Health workshops.
“Participants will really enjoy how this program is set up,” says Britt. “There’s interaction, we set goals and help each other problem solve. It’s also good because it isn’t focused on one disease. It approaches things from a broad sense.”
Information covered in the workshops will include handling pain and fatigue, managing medications, dealing with difficult emotions, healthy eating and activity, problem solving and goal setting and communicating with health care providers. They will be offered in 60 communities throughout Alberta throughout the year.
“We’ve run these programs throughout the province in the past. What we’ve been able to do now is bring those programs together under one name, Better Choices, Better Health, and provide workshops that are consistent regardless of where you live,” says Dr. Peter Sargious, Medical Director of Chronic Disease with AHS.
For a schedule of the workshops offered can be found at the Alberta Health Services website or by calling Health Link at 1-866-408-5465.
AHS says it’s now exploring ways to expand the service to even more communities.
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