Research into the role of the brain in chronic pain
Adelaide’s recreational cyclists are being urged to help raise awareness about chronic pain by joining the University of South Australia’s Ride for Pain on Sunday April 29. The ride, which includes an option for cyclists to conquer the notoriously painful Corkscrew Road in the Adelaide Hills, is the brainchild of UniSA’s Professor of … [Read more...]
Summary My PhD research investigated the role of cervical spine Range of Motion in the recovery from Whiplash Associated Disorders (WAD). This formed part of my work on a large RCT investigating conservative treatments for WAD [2]. In clinical practice, Health Care Professionals attach value to measurements of cervical spine Range of Motion … [Read more...]
I can only speak for myself, but the idea of peer review usually fills a researcher with the diametrically opposed feelings of fear of failure and a genuine excitement that the imminent suggestions will help one’s paper shine. It doesn’t help that the time of judgment usually comes after one has spent countless hours working on presenting … [Read more...]
I remember being amazed by my uncle. He has arthritis in his knees and as a small child I was fascinated by his ‘psychic knees’. And by ‘psychic’ I am really describing the situation where he would look at me and knowingly state, “It’s going to rain…my knees are aching.” And then it would! How did his knees know? What aspects of … [Read more...]
A whole edition of Spine was recently dedicated to whiplash associated disorders (WAD) (Vol 36 Number 25S). One paper by Cote and Soklaridis (1) caught my attention. They warn that health professionals should be aware of the danger of iatrogenesis during the early stages of WAD. According to Wikipedia the term iatrogenesis means brought forth by a … [Read more...]
Evidence has been accumulating that shows that people with chronic pain have modifications in body awareness. For example patients suffering from CRPS express feelings of foreignness towards their painful body part, distorted sense of size and shape, and difficulty determining the position of the affected limb (e.g., Lewis, Kersten, McCabe, … [Read more...]
The Pain Science Division (PSD) of the Canadian Physiotherapy Association (CPA) was founded in 2008, through the dedicated work of a small group of Canadian PTs. Diane Jacobs brought Dave Walton, Nick Matheson, Sebastian Asselbergs, Eric Matheson and me together, initially forming the Canadian Physiotherapy Pain Science Group(CPPSG). In 2005 we … [Read more...]
We have recently found that children exposed to family violence show the same pattern of activity in their brains as soldiers exposed to combat. This study, which can be downloaded from the journal Current Biology, included 43 children scanned using an fMRI scanner. 20 children who had been exposed to documented violence at home were compared with … [Read more...]
Glial cells keep appearing everywhere I look. No, I have not been shrunken by some Rick Moranis-like character and made to wander around the body (a reference to “Honey, I shrunk the kids”)! But, I have been wandering around the pages of journals, ever-so-slowly trying to get a grasp of how the nervous and immune systems talk to each-other. … [Read more...]
Luke is a PhD student at Neuroscience Research Australia researching some of the factors that play a role in the development of complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS). Luke joins the Body in Mind team with a background of clinical practice and research in Western Australia. He has rapidly cultivated an interest in all things pain and has very … [Read more...]
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