Health Advocate | Scleroderma | Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation

June 10, 2020

Be Your Own Health Advocate

Become your own health advocate. Research shows that patients who are more involved with their care tend to get better results.

Ask questions
Take a friend or family member to your appointment with you to help you ask questions and understand answers
Keep a copy of your own medical history
Prepare an advance directive to ensure that you receive the care you want if you become too ill to express your wishes

Learn more about what you can do to take charge of your health.

Sun Safety

If you’re spending more time working in the garden, or even taking a walk, it’s important to protect yourself from sun exposure. Ultraviolet rays from the sun pass through your skin and damage your skin cells. This kind of damage can cause eye problems, wrinkles, skin spots, and skin cancer. Wearing sunglasses, protective clothing, and sunscreen with an SPF of 15 or higher will help protect you from sun exposure.

What is Scleroderma?

Scleroderma is a type of autoimmune disorder that causes abnormal growth of connective tissue, the material inside your body that gives your tissues their shape and helps keep them strong. In scleroderma, the tissue gets hard or thick. Some types of scleroderma affect only the skin, while others affect the whole body. Find out more about symptoms, testing, and treatment.

Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation

Physical therapy and rehabilitation helps you recover from an illness, medical condition, or injury by improving abilities that you need for daily life. These abilities may be physical, mental, and/or cognitive (thinking and learning). Treatment can happen as an outpatient or in at an inpatient rehabilitation facility. Learn more about what therapy can do and the services that are available.

Healthy Bones

Keeping bones healthy is important as you get older. Exercise plays a key role in preserving the amount of bone tissue in your bones, or bone density. Weight bearing exercises, exercise that makes your muscles pull on your bones, builds up bone density. Brisk walks, jogging, playing tennis, dancing, and careful weight training that uses weight machines or free weights will help increase bone density. How can you help keep your bones healthy with exercise?