How much “ pain ed ” do people need? And what to do when someone is not convinced …

This post has been a long time coming. There’s no doubt that giving explanations about pain mechanisms is common, and that we’ve (health professionals) been doing it a looooong time. Yes, way back to the 1970’s! In the early 1980’s when I started working in this field it was already commonplace to offer people an explanation for chronic pain (and to explain why some pains are such pains, while others bother us less – even when they involve the same degree of nociceptive input). Of course, way back then we used Gate Control Theory (GCT) to explain the distinction between hurt and harm, to explore why attention and emotion matter, and to introduce the idea of counter-stimulation and TENS: suffice to say clinicians used these metaphors especially for people with persistent pain (Katz & Rosenbloom, 2015). Then along came Moseley, Nicholas and Hodges (2004) with a nicely-designed RCT comparing “pain neurophysiology” education with “back anatomy and physiology” provided by “trained physical therapist educators.” The results of this study showed “Education about pain neurophysiology changes pain cognitions and physical performance but is insufficient by itself to obtain a change in perceived disability.” Somehow the lack of relationship between changes in pain cognitions and physical performance and perceived disability got lost in translation, but what happened next was an explosion of interest in ...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - Category: Anesthesiology Authors: Tags: Chronic pain Clinical reasoning Education/CME Research Science in practice biopsychosocial Explain pain pain explanations PNE Therapeutic approaches Source Type: blogs