Welcome to the Taking Charge: Managing JIA Online Program! JIA stands for juvenile idiopathic arthritis. Are you ready to get started?
In this session, you will:
- learn how to navigate the Taking Charge: Managing JIA Online Program
- learn about the different parts of the program
- learn how to get started
- set goals to better manage JIA.
The Taking Charge: Managing JIA Online Program is designed to help you learn to better manage JIA. Several of the sessions will ask you to try out some of the new skills you will learn.
Education sections
The introduction is followed by nine sessions. When you complete session nine, your journey will be complete. Each session has several parts:
- Information about JIA.
- Self-management strategies to help you manage JIA. These strategies will be in the treatment sessions.
- Assignments, which will help you try out your new skills. These will be in the treatment sessions.
Information about JIA
Each session will provide you with more information about JIA. You will have the chance to learn more about what JIA is, how it is diagnosed, different types of treatments and what resources are available to you.
Self-management strategies for JIA
Included in most of the treatment sessions are different strategies you can use to help manage JIA. For example, there are strategies on how to manage your pain, how to help yourself relax, how to better communicate with your health-care team and how to get ready for university or college. We encourage you to try all of these strategies out so that you can choose the ones that work best for you!
Practicing JIA management strategies
In the treatment sessions, you will be given an assignment that involves practicing some of the skills that you are learning. The more you are able to practice the techniques, the more success you will have with the treatment program. It may help to set aside a time each day for trying out these strategies. For example, many teenagers like to do them after school or in the evening. The assignments will not take much time, usually 10 to 15 minutes each day. Regular practice will help you develop these new skills. Just like when you learn to play a new sport, or learn a new language, practice is the only way to improve your skills.
What can you expect in this JIA program?
There are different sections that you can explore on different topics:
- About JIA
- Understanding diagnosis
- Treatment and management:
- Managing symptoms
- Coping strategies
- JIA medications
- Other types of care
- Therapies, self-monitoring, and supports.
- Your lifestyle
- Looking ahead.
Most teenagers with JIA have faced some challenges in their everyday lives due to JIA, or the treatments they require. This program will help you learn as much as possible about JIA and different ways to cope with it in your daily life.
As long as you keep practicing the strategies we recommend, you are likely to see gradual improvements. You may start to feel better, more in control and able to do more things.
We recommend that you try all of the techniques that we suggest, even if you do not think they will be helpful. This way, when you complete the program, you will have many techniques to choose from. You will be able to choose the ones that worked best for you.