Claire Kinneavy

Claire developed severe Rheumatoid Arthritis at 24 years of age and since then she experienced multidisciplinary healthcare in public and private settings spanning 41 years as a patient of rheumatology and orthopaedic departments. The disease has impacted her social, family, community, and work life significantly. She joined Arthritis Ireland and got involved in local voluntary work in 1987, having retired from Home Economics teaching a year earlier. She represented patients on the board of Arthritis Ireland for 7 years and worked as a helpline volunteer in the National Office. Currently Claire works as a volunteer on the Arthritis Ireland peer to peer support service, has addressed patient groups, pharmaceutical industry employees, student doctors, nurses etc. She is passionate about organising various exercise events and other workshops in the community with other committee members. Her exercise hobbies include Nordic walking and aqua aerobics .She has enjoyed delivering the Arthritis Ireland Living well with Arthritis self-management programme in the community and has co trained several leaders.

Claire has been involved in several projects, steering groups, and studies as a patient to include ‘Inflammatory Arthritis and You’, (In)visible illness: A photovoice study of the lived experience of self-managing rheumatoid arthritis and the PIPPRA (Physiotherapist led Intervention to promote physical activity in RA study) and Treat to Target (T2T). She also participated in a research trial examining the effect of exercise in people with RA taking anti-TNFa therapy and a Mediterranean Diet and RA study therefore is ideally suited to join this study as a patient representative.