The Internet is changing not just the way patients get medical information, but the way they interact with doctors, their families, and even with strangers.

A new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project gives a glimpse of some of that change. It studies people with disabilities and chronic conditions, who are some of the most avid users of Internet health sites. Fewer of them go online than the overall population, probably because many are elderly, a group that is still less likely to use the Internet. But when people with disabilities and chronic conditions do use the Internet, they are more likely than other users to look up health information and use that knowledge to question a doctor, manage pain or change the way they cope with a chronic condition.

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