Make sure you're looking after yourself

Our nurse, Cathy Ross, says it's important people with long term health conditions learn to look after themselves properly.

Wednesday 16 Novemeber, 2011

Doctors, nurses, healthcare professionals, and even politicians, all have a part to play in helping us stay healthy. But there is somebody missing from that list - and they look a lot like you!

This week is NHS Self Care Week and is aimed at helping people take care of themselves; letting them know what is available to help them look after their health. This year, the campaign is being run in partnership with the Self Care Forum.

So what does “self care” mean anyway? Well, it’s all about finding ways that will help keep you fit and healthy. That could mean knowing how to take your medicines, how to treat minor health problems or knowing where and when to seek medical help.

We’ve got lots of publications which can help you take care of yourself.

Very importantly, self care is also about understanding long term health conditions and how to live with them, and that includes heart failure. Heart failure means that your heart is not pumping blood around your body as well as it used to. The most common reason for the condition is because the heart has become damaged, probably from a heart attack.

'Debilitating condition'

For many people, heart failure can be a debilitating condition where everyday tasks can take enormous amounts of energy. Just ask Jo Ward. Having a shower, popping to the shops or even playing with children can leave people with heart failure breathless and exhausted. At the moment, there is no cure for heart failure. But the BHF is determined to change that and is hoping to spend £50million to help mend these broken hearts through funding research into regenerative medicine.

More than 750,000 people are living with heart failure in the UK and Self Care Week is the perfect opportunity for people with heart failure, or any long term health condition for that matter, to learn more about how they can lead as normal life as possible.

• This is the first of three blogs marking Self Care Week. Next time, we’ll be taking a closer look at how heart patients can help themselves with cardiac rehab.