ACT plus exercise, vs exercise alone …

and what a shame there was no ACT alone group… No secret here, I like ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) as an approach for living well with chronic pain. I like it for many reasons, but probably the most compelling ones are that the hierarchy between therapist and person living with pain is minimised (we’re both humans finding our way through life) and that it doesn’t require the person to delve into challenging or disputing thoughts – this in turn enhances adherence to the core elements of ACT: living a life aligned with what really matters to this person. People seem to find using ACT more appealing than other forms of therapy for chronic pain. Anyway, just recently a new study investigating ACT plus an additional exercise component (for eight weeks of physiotherapy supervised exercise, and ACT led by a psychologist), vs a supervised exercise programme only. This recent publication is a 12 month follow-up from the original (Casey et al., 2022). The design of this study involved participants referred to an outpatient musculoskeletal clinic living with any chronic pain condition. Participants were excluded from the trial if they needed further diagnosis, experienced a major medical or psychiatric diagnosis, had cancer, an ‘unstable’ inflammatory condition, substance misuse, some kind of surgical or interventional procedure in the previous 3 months, were part of another supervised exercise programme or were taking part in psy...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - Category: Anesthesiology Authors: Tags: ACT - Acceptance & Commitment Therapy Chronic pain Pain conditions Physiotherapy Professional topics Psychology Research Science in practice pain management Therapeutic approaches Source Type: blogs