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Cancer is associated with sometimes strong emotions. However, emotions are mostly adaptive - they help people adapt to cancer. Adaptive emotions do not need to be treated; instead, emotional support is key. Professional mental health care is indicated only when emotions are no longer adaptive. Oncologists, nurses, and especially general practitioners play an important role in identifying people who qualify for referral to mental health care. Prior mental health problems, a weak social support system, and a relatively stressful disease course or treatment are risk factors for cancer-related emotional problems. Training and the development of professional networks can contribute to optimizing the availability, accessibility and quality of supportive care for mental well-being during and after cancer treatment. In addition, providing good information to patients is important, to enable them to find supportive care.

"Exercise is medicine": exercise therapy reduces pain and activity limitations in osteoarthritis of the knee and is likely to have the same effects in osteoarthritis of the hip. Further research into exercise therapy is needed, since disease-modifying drugs are not available, pain medication can cause side effects, and surgical interventions are preferably applied in an advanced stage of disease. Classical exercise therapy is aimed at improving muscle strength, aerobic capacity, range of joint motion, and training of walking and activities of daily living. New modalities of targeted exercise therapy are currently being developed, aimed at the correction of low levels of activity and to correct instability of the knee. Weight loss, preferably combined with exercise therapy, reduces pain and activity limitations in osteoarthritis patients who are overweight. Modalities of exercise therapy adapted to comorbid conditions are currently being developed.

In the Netherlands the current, conservative management of osteoarthritis of the hip and knee is heterogeneous and suboptimal. Existing guidelines only provide indications for certain interventions, but they do not provide recommendations about the sequence of these treatments. A step-by-step treatment strategy has now been developed in addition to the guidelines. Its aim is to optimize and clarify the conservative policy for osteoarthritis. In addition, communication between patients and professionals and between professionals themselves must be encouraged. According to the treatment strategy, relatively advanced interventions are considered only after simpler interventions have had insufficient results. A care booklet has also been developed that contains information for patients about osteoarthritis, treatment options, healthcare professionals and the treatment strategy.