In the United States, 54.4 million people have rheumatoid arthritis. 1 in 4 women is a patient of the condition. Still Arthritis is a poorly understood disease. White it is believed that it only affects older adults, young people may also suffer from it. This misconception makes them uncomprehend. Nine out of ten patients feel that people perceive their condition as irrelevant. Leaving a population not only in great physical pain, but with up to ten times more symptoms of depression and anxiety, conditions that cause them to abandon their rehabilitation. To help the patients we needed to find a way to lift their spirits by making rehabilitation fun while involving friends or family.

We created the first dance challenge on Tik Tok and Instagram that works as a rehabilitation exercise for arthritis patients. The routine was a collaboration between one of Puerto Rico’s top young choreographers and the medical team of the FER Foundation (Puerto Rican Foundation of Rheumatic Diseases) to ensure the effectiveness and safety of the dance steps. The choreography includes low impact exercises, with movements that stimulates the joints.

Our target audience were arthritis patients and their support group. To help our chronic disease patients push through with their rehabilitation we understood it had to go beyond a personal challenge and become more of a social activity. Online dance challenges allow people to dance together, albeit apart. Here, a dancer’s level of confidence matters about as much as his or her skill level, and the fact that anyone can join in plays on that sense of belonging that many want to take part in. That’s why if we disguised a rehabilitation routine as a viral dance video, we created something the whole group could join or simply are enjoyed watching.

On October 12, World Arthritis Day, Fundación FER launched on their social media platforms the #ForYourPain Dance Challenge. Along with an instructional video with the choreography, a step-by-step explanation of the benefits of each movement was explained by one of our rheumatologists. During that week our first link with the patients were the rheumatologists that presented the challenge to their patients as fun way to stay engaged in their rehabilitation process. Web banners were set to take people to instructional videos and to promote the dance. As soon as it started becoming news, and artists and influential TV programs featured the story we created a landing page that aggregated all those interactions to keep the campaign going on strong.

We saw as many began to move to the rhythm of healing, capturing the attention of the country. 77% reach to our intended target. A CTR of the dance banners of .82% and even better a CTR of .25% in content of Bristol’s Orencia that accompanied the initiative in the landing page. The free press gathered by the initiative had a value of $42,000 of extra exposure in TV.

While many uses dance challenges to have fun, this is the first one created by professionals to help patients with rheumatoid arthritis improve their quality of life.