Pain Medicine News - Massive Research Project Targets Chronic Pain in the Military

Spanning five years, costing almost $22 million and spread across 13 separate research trials nationwide, several federal agencies are tackling head-on the mounting problem of how to treat chronic pain in the U.S. military without exacerbating the country's opioid abuse problem. The new research program, spearheaded by the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Health Services Research and Development Division, will look at non-drug approaches for treating chronic pain and some of the conditions that go hand-in-hand with it, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), drug abuse and sleep problems. Modalities to be studied will include, but are not limited to psychotherapy, bright light therapy and self-hypnosis. The multicenter research effort, involving VA medical centers and academic institutions, will not only focus on active military and U.S. veterans but will look at the effects on their families as well. According to NCCAM director Josephine Briggs, MD, more Americans turn to complementary and alternative therapies for pain relief than for any other condition. That fact, and the need to stem the increasing problem of prescription painkiller abuse among military personnel, has led to the large-scale research effort, she said. "The need for non-drug treatment options is a significant and urgent publ...
Source: Psychology of Pain - Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs