Author | Maddy Pontius, BA

Conversations assessing and responding to suicide risk with your patients destigmatizes suicide and mental illness while strengthening your skills as a provider.

Chronic pain and functional limitations, along with these academic and social difficulties, are directly related to mental health complaints. Therefore, adolescents with rheumatic diseases are at a higher risk for developing mental illness.

Caregivers are a rheumatologist's most important allies. Learn the warning signs of caregiver burnout and how to combat the symptoms. Remember: their health is prerequisite to patient care.

Mindfulness interventions teach and promote the use of psychological skills to improve quality of life among individuals with chronic conditions like rheumatic disease. These interventions largely act by reducing pain-related activation in the sensory cortex and increasing activity in the cingulate cortex, the area of the brain responsible for learning, memory, and processing bodily sensations, like pain.