Target Audience

Healthcare professionals.

Description

This course updates attendees on the latest evidence and clinical application of pain neuroscience education (PNE) for patients in pain. Current best evidence suggests that neuroscience education strategies that use neurobiology and neurophysiology can reduce pain, increase function, decrease fear and catastrophizing, and enhance movement, while also altering cognitions and brain activation during pain experiences. PNE changes patients' beliefs regarding their pain, thus reducing the threat of pain. This class will discuss the evolution of PNE, why PNE is needed in medicine and rehabilitation, and, more importantly, its clinical application and implementation for patients with acute, sub-acute, and chronic pain.

Special features include metaphors, images, examples, and case studies utilizing PNE in patients experiencing pain. In addition, the class will cover the emerging clinical concept of PNE+ – PNE plus various behavioral strategies to alleviate pain, enhance function, and achieve goals. PNE+ covered in this class includes exercise, pacing, graded exposure, sleep hygiene, goal setting, coping strategies, meditation and mindfulness, and more. This course will teach attendees how cognitive (PNE) strategies and the various behavioral techniques (PNE+) fit within the current best-evidence approach for treating pain, especially chronic pain.

Finally, the course will explore important clinical application issues, including billing, time management, documentation, multi- and interdisciplinary approaches, and more. This will enhance the attendees’ ability to implement PNE in various clinical settings. This class is essential for all healthcare providers who work with patients experiencing pain.

Educational Practice Gap

According to the Global Burden of Disease Study (2015), 1 in 4 people struggle with some form of persistent pain. Historically, persistent pain treatment has been deeply rooted in a biomedical model focused on tissues and tissue injury. Not only have these models shown limited efficacy in decreasing pain and disability, but they may have increased fear in patients, which in turn may increase their pain. Current best evidence suggests that PNE strategies, which use neurobiology and neurophysiology, can reduce pain, increase function, decrease fear and catastrophizing, improve movement, and alter cognitions and brain activation during pain experiences.

PNE changes patients' beliefs regarding their pain, thus reducing the threat of pain. This class will discuss the evolution of PNE, why PNE is needed in medicine and rehabilitation, and, more importantly, how to clinically apply and implement PNE for patients with acute, sub-acute, and chronic pain.

Learning Objectives

1. Discuss the latest evidence for pain neuroscience education.
2. Generalize pain neuroscience education concepts to clinical practice using at least one metaphor shared in class.
3. List at least half of the output systems discussed in class and their response in a patient experiencing chronic pain.
4. List potential strategies to implement pain neuroscience into clinical practice regarding time, staff, billing, and traditional treatments.
5. Outline a treatment plan for a patient with chronic pain based on output system dysfunctions, with the correct pain neurophysiological reasoning behind the treatment, using the information provided in the course.

Instructor

Stephen Schmidt, PT, MPhysio, OCS, FAAOMPT

Mr. Schmidt is a physical therapist with more than 30 years of experience spanning clinical practice, leadership, research, and education. He serves as the PT manager at the Kaiser Foundation Rehabilitation Center and co-leads its Spinal Cord Injury Specialty Program. He is also faculty for the Kaiser Vallejo Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation Program and senior faculty for Evidence In Motion’s pain science curriculum.

Mr. Schmidt has co-authored books on pain neuroscience education and teaches nationally and internationally on neurodynamics, graded motor imagery, and pain neuroscience. He is currently a PhD candidate in Health Sciences at the University of South Dakota, where his research focuses on assessment, intervention, and pain education strategies for individuals with spinal cord injury.