About GLA:D® Ireland
What is it?
GLA:D is an exercise and education programme for people with hip and knee osteoarthritis. The programme offers 12 physiotherapist-supervised exercise sessions and at least 2 education sessions over an 8-week period to help people with joint pain to manage their condition.
The skills can be applied to everyday activities and work to strengthen muscles and improve confidence with exercise. Participants learn techniques to become or stay active, prevent symptom progression and reduce pain.
Background
GLA:D (Good Life with osteoArthritis Denmark) is a non-profit initiative that trains physiotherapists to implement guidelines for hip and knee osteoarthritis in clinical practice. The GLA:D initiative has shown that implementing clinical evidence can be achieved using a bottom-up approach with limited funding.
Since 2013, the programme has over 6,000 trained PTs and over 100,000 registered patients globally and has been adapted for use in Canada, Australia, China, Austria, Switzerland, New Zealand, the Netherlands and Germany to date.
If you have hip or knee joint pain, more information can be found here.
If you are a physiotherapist who is interested in delivering the programme, more information can be found here.
If you are a health professional interested in referring patients to the programme, more information can be found here.
EDUCATION
About GLA:D® Ireland
Education
At least two 90-minute education sessions on osteoarthritis management
Exercise
Twice weekly supervised neuromuscular group exercise sessions for 6 weeks
Data Collection for Quality Monitoring and Research
The programme measures how patients are doing at their fist visit, 3 and 12 months after they start the programme. This will form the GLA:D Ireland Patient Registry to inform research and help to improve service delivery.
