January launched the start of a new class at His Hands. Jennifer Lopez, the clinic’s diabetic nurse educator, and her husband, Angelo, were trained by the Heritage Agency on Aging to offer Chronic Disease Self-Management Program. (Examples of conditions that qualify someone for the class are diabetes, depression, anxiety, heart disease, and chronic pain.)
The class is open to anyone in the community, so participants do not have to be patients of His Hands to take the course. However, many that are in this first session are patients here at the clinic. The CDSMP class is also open to family members who want to learn more how they can support their loved one as they manage a chronic disease.
The class meets for two hours per week. In addition, to learning coping techniques, the participants are able to foster new relationships with one another and provide a supportive environment to learn and grow. The Heritage Agency on Aging has offered this class for quite some time now, but sometimes locations were far from downtown. By offering a class here at the clinic, we hope to make it more accessible to the patients that we serve.
We know that facing a condition knowing it will last a life-time, or at least be long-term, can be very overwhelming. Our goal as a clinic is to be more holistic in the care that we provide, and the CDSMP class is one way to provide both education and support to the patients we serve.
Amy DeLay, Patient Advocate
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