Gaining Control Over Pain

In this IASP RELIEF podcast, David Walton PT, PhD, an Associate Professor with the School of Physical Therapy at Western University, Canada, discusses the problem of whiplash, how pain from whiplash injuries is assessed and treated, and much more.

Steven Z. George PT, PhD, FAPTA is the Laszlo Ormany Distinguished Professor in Orthopaedic Surgery at Duke University and leads the Musculoskeletal and Surgical Sciences therapeutic area in the Duke Clinical Research Institute. His research focuses on biopsychosocial models for the prevention and treatment of chronic musculoskeletal pain disorders. His goals are to improve the ability to predict who will develop chronic pain and identify non-drug treatment options that limit the development of chronic pain. In this RELIEF podcast, Dr. George explains what the biopsychosocial model of pain is, how psychological aspects of pain can be incorporated into treatment of musculoskeletal pain, the importance of pain education and self-management, and much more.

Editor's Note: From February 2-5, 2020, neuroscience researchers gathered in Keystone, Colorado, to attend two related symposia, Pain: Aligning the Target and Somatosensation: From Detection to Perception. At the meeting, Annemieke Kavelaars, a professor and researcher at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, sat down for a podcast with freelance writer Stephani Sutherland to discuss the connection between chronic pain and the immune system. Take a listen below.

Editor's Note: From February 2-5, 2020, neuroscience researchers gathered in Keystone, Colorado, to attend a symposium, Somatosensation: From Detection to Perception. This symposium, which was held jointly with the symposium, Pain: Aligning the Target, focused on somatosensation – how the body senses pain, touch, temperature, itch and body position. Alexander Chesler, one of the organizers of the symposium, is a researcher who investigates somatosensation at the US National Institutes of Health's National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. He sat down at the symposium for a podcast with freelance writer Stephani Sutherland to discuss how somatosensation works and what happens in the nervous system when it goes awry. Take a listen below.

Editor's Note: Helene Langevin, M.D., is director of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), the US Federal government's lead agency for scientific research on the diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not generally considered part of conventional medicine. NCCIH funds and conducts research to help answer important scientific and public health questions about natural products, mind and body practices, and pain management. The center also coordinates and collaborates with other research institutes and Federal programs on research into complementary and integrative health. Dr. Langevin's own research interests include the role of connective tissue in chronic musculoskeletal pain and the mechanisms of acupuncture, manual, and movement-based therapies. Her more recent work has focused on the effects of stretching on the resolution of inflammation within connective tissue. In this RELIEF podcast, freelance writer Stephani Sutherland asks Dr. Langevin about the work NCCIH is doing, the research she is focusing on now, and more.

At the 2018 World Congress on Pain, the biennial meeting of the International Association for the Study of Pain, researchers from around the world gathered to discuss the latest pain research. This RELIEF podcast features Christopher Eccleston, PhD, a professor of medical psychology at the University of Bath, UK, where he directs the Centre for Pain Research. At the Congress, he delivered the Ronald Melzack Award Lecture. He sat down for a podcast at the meeting with freelance journalist Stephani Sutherland to discuss the themes of his talk, in particular how chronic pain can be understood as a problem of interruption, interference and identity, along with other ideas from the field of pain psychology. 

At the 2018 World Congress on Pain, the biennial meeting of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), researchers from around the world gathered to discuss the latest pain research. This RELIEF podcast features Howard Fields, MD, PhD, a professor of neurology and physiology emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco. At the Congress, Fields delivered the John J. Bonica Award lecture, "How Expectations Shape Pain Perception." Fields sat down for a podcast at the meeting with freelance journalist Stephani Sutherland to discuss the themes of his talk, in particular how motivations, expectations and decision making fit into the experience of chronic pain.

Editor's Note: At the 2018 World Congress on Pain, the biennial meeting of the International Association for the Study of Pain, researchers from around the world gathered to discuss the latest pain research. In this Pain 101 podcast, which was recorded at the World Congress, two experts working to help people gain control over their pain discussed their work. The first part of the podcast features pain psychologist Beth Darnall, PhD, a clinical professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University. Darnall sat down with Alexander Tuttle, PhD, who is doing post-PhD research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to discuss how psychological treatments can help people to ease their pain. The second part of the podcast features Michael Saenger, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at Emory University School of Medicine and Director of the Empower Veterans Program (EVP) at Atlanta VA Health Care System. Saenger sat down with Natalie Osborne, a PhD student at the University of Toronto, to discuss EVP, which helps veterans suffering from severe, persistent pain to manage their condition.

Editor's Note: At the 2018 World Congress on Pain, the biennial meeting of the International Association for the Study of Pain, researchers from around the world gathered to discuss the latest pain research. This RELIEF podcast features Catherine Bushnell, PhD, a pain researcher and the scientific director of the Division of Intramural Research at the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), part of the National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda, Maryland. The NCCIH focuses on complementary and integrative health, including an emphasis on non-drug treatments for chronic pain. Bushnell sat down for a podcast at the World Congress with freelance journalist Stephani Sutherland to discuss the work the NCCIH is doing to improve the understanding and treatment of chronic pain. This includes the scientific study of how chronic pain alters the brain for the worse, and how mind-body treatments like yoga, meditation and exercise can change it back for the better.