What is a LTC?
Long Term Conditions (LTCs) are chronic physical health conditions that cannot be cured but they can be treated through medications and symptom self-management tools. Common LTCs include:
• Diabetes
• Chronic pain conditions
• Chronic fatigue syndrome
• Fibromyalgia
• Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)
• Coronary Heart Disease (CHD)
• Asthma
• Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)
• Long covid
How can LTCs impact our lives?
Living with a LTC can be challenging. LTCs can make it harder to engage in day to day activities such as washing, dressing, cooking and working. They can also impact our day to day lives in other ways, for example affecting sleep, relationships and hobbies. As a result, depression and anxiety are more common in people with LTCs. In fact, people living with a LTC are three times more likely to develop depression and anxiety than the general population.
Symptoms of depression may include:
- Feeling down, depressed or hopeless
- Not enjoying things you used to enjoy
- Feeling tearful
- Changes in your appetite
- Changes in your sleep patterns
- Thoughts of wanting to end your life
Symptoms of anxiety may include:
- Worrying about something bad happening
- Worrying about lots of different things
- Finding it hard to stop or control worrying
- Feeling fearful
- Finding it hard to relax
- Feeling restless or irritable
How can Talking Therapies help?
The experience of anxiety and depression can increase the negative impact of LTCs on our daily lives. Anxiety and depression can both directly and indirectly contribute to flare-ups or worsening of symptoms.
Directly, the biological and hormonal changes in the body that accompany anxiety and depression can increase symptoms. For example in the case of diabetes adrenaline can raise blood sugar levels and in the case of chronic pain conditions adrenaline can increase tension and tightness. Indirectly, anxiety and depression can make it harder to engage in physical activity and self management of the condition, which can lead to lowered self-care and bodily de-conditioning. Ultimately this can lead to a vicious cycle of symptom flare-ups, lowered mood and increased anxiety, which leads to further symptom flare-ups and so on.
BSW Talking Therapies provide evidence-based psychological therapies for people with LTCs who are also experiencing anxiety and depression to help them break out of these vicious cycles. Treatment is based on Cognitive-Behaviour Therapy (CBT), which helps us to make helpful changes to our thoughts and behaviours to improve how we feel emotionally and physically.
CBT teaches a number of techniques that can help us to spot and modify unhelpful thinking patterns to improve how we feel emotionally as well as to support effective behaviour change. It also teaches a number of behavioural techniques that can help us to engage safely in activity as well as self-manage symptoms.
Our psychological wellbeing practitioners will work with you to identify any unhelpful thoughts or behaviours that may be contributing to depression or anxiety, and support you to make helpful changes in these areas to improve how you feel emotionally and the overall experience of the LTC.
Help with anxiety and depression when you have a long-term condition is available to people whether they have been referred, or have referred themselves, to Talking Therapies. If you would like to self-refer for an assessment then please follow the link here.