In Brief

Patient, manage thyself (but coaching may be available)

Illness often used to be swift and severe. Once people became patients, they were too sick to be anything but passive and follow doctor's orders, which were rather simple.

But now we're in the age of chronic illness, moving at deliberate speed: We live for years, if not decades, with conditions like arthritis, asthma, diabetes, heart disease, and some forms of cancer. Ideally, doctors don't boss patients around, but advise and enlighten them.