Category Archives: Chronic illness

Improving care for people with Parkinson’s through learning

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Fiona Barrett is the Education Programme Manager at Parkinson’s UK. The charity works alongside health and care professionals in the UK Parkinson’s Excellence Network to provide resources and learning to drive improvements in the care of people with Parkinson’s. (500 words)

With the recent publication of the updated Parkinson’s NICE guideline and quality standard, it’s a great time to highlight some of the learning we provide to help health and social care professionals improve the quality of care they offer to people with Parkinson’s. Continue reading →

Social work and the ill body

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Liz Price Liz WalkerLiz Price (left) and Liz Walker both work at the University of Hull. (401 words)

Social work is remarkably silent when it comes to the physical body. By definition, the profession is similarly unnoticed within the experience, and practice, of illness. This book addresses these silences through an exploration of chronic (autoimmune) illnesses engaging in wider debates around vulnerability, resistance and the lived experience of ongoing ill-health.

We demonstrate the role that social work has to play in actively engaging the (ill) physical body, rather than working around and through it. We focus on autoimmune conditions such as lupus, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and scleroderma. Conditions like these allow for an exploration of the everyday lived experience of illnesses which can exacerbate social and economic vulnerability and may precipitate personal and social crises, requiring a variety of interventions and support. Continue reading →