Being able to understand the difference between tissue damage, pain and suffering is essential to understanding, assessing and managing chronic pain. Or put more simply; we cannot "manage" what we don't understand, so in order to help people with chronic pain we need to make it understandable. This course will give you the necessary knowledge to start putting the puzzle together with your patients.

This course has a unique blend of academic/science and clinical experience/theories to support the clinician in allowing their patients to be experts on the lived-experience of pain. 

What to expect on the 2-day course?

Learning outcomes:

After the course, participants will be able to: 

Understand the concept of a theory as opposed to a scientific explanation in relation to pain

Understand and apply mechanism-based assessment to evaluate primary and secondary hyperalgesia in patients with acute and chronic pain

Apply current knowledge about the descending pain modulatory system to clinical practice

Understand best evidence for treating non-specific chronic low back pain and wide-spread pain (fibromyalgia)

Use science to help patients create a helpful narrative that explains why they feel pain and what can be done to help them (psychoeducation)

Course Outline

Session 1: Pain in Context

·       Pain in context: History, Science and Society

·       Paradigms and theories of pain

Session 2: Essential neuroscience in relation to acute and chronic pain

·       Nociception; a necessary part of physiological pain?

·       Peripheral sensitization; is this present in all acute musculoskeletal injuries?

·       Central sensitization; is this an essential mechanism in non-specific pain?

Session 3: Views on assessment

·       A mechanism-based approach: Putting the pieces together into a general theory of "pain neuroscience"

·       Serious pathology; what role does inflammation play?

·       Neuropathic or not? What does nerve damage add to the clinical picture?

·       What does it mean to be Paining?

Session 4: Views on management/treatment

·       The descending modulatory system; explaining treatment-effects with neuroscience?

·       Exercise and pain

·       Non-specific treatment effects (placebo and nocebo effects)

·       Creating a narrative about pain; communication and psychoeducation in clinical practice