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Published on 2012-08-08 23:13:43
Bronwyn Thompson offers comprehensive information on topics such as post accident trauma and pain management, learn about pain management here. Also, learn about topics such as scar revision and massage for relaxation Now listed with Ceatus Media Group NB I don’t endorse/recommend any specific product or approach, this is simply an advisory Filed under: Uncategorized
Link
Published on 2012-08-08 23:13:43
Bronwyn Thompson offers comprehensive information on topics such as post accident trauma and pain management, learn about pain management here. Also, learn about topics such as scar revision and massage for relaxation Now listed with Ceatus Media Group NB I don’t endorse/recommend any specific product or approach, this is simply an advisory Filed under: Uncategorized
More discussion on Functional Capacity Evaluations
Published on 2012-06-05 16:31:04
Some years ago I wrote about Functional Capacity Evaluations and the lack of evidence supporting their use, particularly their use as predictive tools for establishing work “fitness”. I’ve received some sharp criticism in the past for my stance on FCE, and I continue to look for evidence that FCE are valid and reliable. I haven’t
More discussion on Functional Capacity Evaluations
Published on 2012-06-05 16:31:04
Some years ago I wrote about Functional Capacity Evaluations and the lack of evidence supporting their use, particularly their use as predictive tools for establishing work “fitness”. I’ve received some sharp criticism in the past for my stance on FCE, and I continue to look for evidence that FCE are valid and reliable. I haven’t
Journal impact factors
Published on 2012-06-04 20:33:37
If you’ve ever wondered about how well-connected and respected a journal is, journal impact factors claim to give you the answer. Theoretically, a “good” journal will be cited widely by others, and have authors clamouring to contribute to it. Of course, unpopular topics like chronic pain are trounced by their flashier cousins exploring things like
Journal impact factors
Published on 2012-06-04 20:33:37
If you’ve ever wondered about how well-connected and respected a journal is, journal impact factors claim to give you the answer. Theoretically, a “good” journal will be cited widely by others, and have authors clamouring to contribute to it. Of course, unpopular topics like chronic pain are trounced by their flashier cousins exploring things like
Patients Are Often More Engaged In Their Health Than Providers Think
Published on 2012-05-29 00:59:47
Reblogged from Mind The Gap: Patients often don’t get the respect they deserve. Take the subject of patient engagement. Just about everywhere you turn in the health care literature these days we are told how physicians and other providers need to do a better job getting patients involved in their own health. But is that
Patients Are Often More Engaged In Their Health Than Providers Think
Published on 2012-05-29 00:59:47
Reblogged from Mind The Gap: Patients often don’t get the respect they deserve. Take the subject of patient engagement. Just about everywhere you turn in the health care literature these days we are told how physicians and other providers need to do a better job getting patients involved in their own health. But is that
Trust, teamwork and transparency
Published on 2012-05-15 19:21:13
Teams are a feature of healthcare, and nowhere more so than in pain management. This is because, at least for chronic pain, no single profession can claim to have all the answers. Many of us know we need to rely on one another to address patient/client concerns and to provide a consistent approach for the
Trust, teamwork and transparency
Published on 2012-05-15 19:21:13
Teams are a feature of healthcare, and nowhere more so than in pain management. This is because, at least for chronic pain, no single profession can claim to have all the answers. Many of us know we need to rely on one another to address patient/client concerns and to provide a consistent approach for the
Living well with persistent pain – a problem solving model
Published on 2012-05-10 16:05:55
Chronic pain is abnormal. Living well with chronic pain seems a myth, a bit of an impossibility. After all, chronic pain starts with the kind of pain that most people would expect to go away – acute pain. Acute pain is normal and most of us will experience some painful episode today. Acute pain goes
Living well with persistent pain – a problem solving model
Published on 2012-05-10 16:05:55
Chronic pain is abnormal. Living well with chronic pain seems a myth, a bit of an impossibility. After all, chronic pain starts with the kind of pain that most people would expect to go away – acute pain. Acute pain is normal and most of us will experience some painful episode today. Acute pain goes
Nerdy, Sciency Stuff
Published on 2012-05-08 15:33:10
The past three weeks have been a swirl of joyous, passionate neuro-nerdy stuff! And yes, it’s absolutely possible to call neuroscience joyous and passionate (just ask David Butler and the NOI crew). What have I learned? Let’s begin with the obvious: pain is an output of the brain. What does that mean? It means that
Nerdy, Sciency Stuff
Published on 2012-05-08 15:33:10
The past three weeks have been a swirl of joyous, passionate neuro-nerdy stuff! And yes, it’s absolutely possible to call neuroscience joyous and passionate (just ask David Butler and the NOI crew). What have I learned? Let’s begin with the obvious: pain is an output of the brain. What does that mean? It means that
The Graded Motor Imagery Handbook – a review
Published on 2012-05-01 14:25:31
I love getting presents, and I love books, so what could be better than getting a book to review as a present! Graded motor imagery (GMI) has become incredibly popular in pain management, especially for people with unilateral pain. It’s a treatment that is intensive for patients/participants, but is non-invasive, means the person with pain
The Graded Motor Imagery Handbook – a review
Published on 2012-05-01 14:25:31
I love getting presents, and I love books, so what could be better than getting a book to review as a present! Graded motor imagery (GMI) has become incredibly popular in pain management, especially for people with unilateral pain. It’s a treatment that is intensive for patients/participants, but is non-invasive, means the person with pain
Lorimer Moseley throws the gauntlet down!
Published on 2012-04-29 22:39:36
This week I’ve been at the NOI Conference 2012 – a real blast! A week of neuroscience-backed biopsychosocial practice, and nerdy passions. My brain is nourished, in fact, it’s replete. And now to digest. Why the headline? Well, throughout the conference, over and over again I heard about physiotherapy and psychology – and nary a
Lorimer Moseley throws the gauntlet down!
Published on 2012-04-29 22:39:36
This week I’ve been at the NOI Conference 2012 – a real blast! A week of neuroscience-backed biopsychosocial practice, and nerdy passions. My brain is nourished, in fact, it’s replete. And now to digest. Why the headline? Well, throughout the conference, over and over again I heard about physiotherapy and psychology – and nary a
How occupational engagement might work in pain management
Published on 2012-03-15 18:21:32
Intuitively, most of us know that when we’re actively involved in doing something we either enjoy or is sufficiently complex enough to need attention, we can lose awareness of things like hunger, thirst – or pain. In the very early years of occupational therapy, this “distracting” factor of occupation was employed to good effect to
How occupational engagement might work in pain management
Published on 2012-03-15 18:21:32
Intuitively, most of us know that when we’re actively involved in doing something we either enjoy or is sufficiently complex enough to need attention, we can lose awareness of things like hunger, thirst – or pain. In the very early years of occupational therapy, this “distracting” factor of occupation was employed to good effect to
Mindfulness, catastrophising and disability
Published on 2012-03-06 13:05:33
Readers of Healthskills will know I have a fascination for mindfulness as an intervention for people who have ongoing pain. Mindfulness is relatively easy to learn, is portable – is free, and has no calories! Seriously, as a seemingly simple intervention, it has appeal not only because it is readily used, but also because so… Readmore
Pain reduction doesn’t (always) reduce disability
Published on 2012-01-31 14:23:39
The relationship between pain and disability is a particularly vexing one in primary care. It would be great if it was possible to get rid of pain and be assured that any lingering effects on function would be similarly abolished, but it just doesn’t seem to be quite that simple. Many different approaches to managing… Readmore
Gratitude when you’re in pain? You’ve got to be kidding!
Published on 2012-01-10 15:57:13
Or – introducing the “parent of all virtues” (Wood, Joseph & Linley, 2007). For some time now I’ve been exploring the contribution of positive psychology on wellbeing in people with chronic pain. Positive psychology is the ” scientific study of the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive”. (Seligman, ND). It strikes… Readmore
What to do when a patient is “inconsistent”
Published on 2011-12-08 13:30:59
I’m a practical person, despite occasional flights of fancy dreaming of a health service that really integrates a biopsychosocial approach for pain management, sigh… Anyway, my intention with this short series of posts about “faking” and “inconsistency” is to: point out that pain is personal and subjective and because of this, we can’t know what… Readmore
“Faking” pain – and inconsistency in presentation
Published on 2011-11-17 00:53:11
There is a common belief amongst some people involved in pain and pain management that a person with chronic pain should be consistent in their presentation. That is, be consistent in various settings, and consistent across various measures. This assumes that if inconsistencies are present there must be something going on to cause suspicion about… Readmore
The vexed question of determining whether pain is “real”
Published on 2011-11-14 12:24:29
Every now and then the old chestnut of whether it’s possible to determine if a person’s pain is “real” arises. Usually it’s in the form of an insurer, or maybe an employer, who wants to know if the pain this person is describing can possibly be as bad as the person says because “they don’t… Readmore
When patients think their problem is mysterious
Published on 2011-10-16 13:15:32
This post is sparked off by a Facebook discussion where someone (you know who you are!) asked what to do when patients hold entrenched beliefs about the uniqueness or mysteriousness of their situation. They might say things like “I don’t think anyone know what to do with me”, or “I think because my situation is… Readmore
OT Only Area – Password Access
Published on 2011-10-07 21:06:12
For those who would like to gain access to the OT Only area of this blog, please click here, go to the contact area towards the bottom of the page, give your name, email address and confirm that you’re an occupational therapist, and I’ll send you the password. Filed under: Uncategorized
Protected: Why I can no longer think of myself as an occupational therapist
Published on 2011-10-07 20:58:41
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Empathy, distress and mindfulness
Published on 2011-09-26 16:00:04
One of the main thrusts of the paper by Hadjistavropoulos, Craig, Duck, Cano, Goubert, Jackson, et al., is that pain communication can serve several functions – it can be an action where a message is sent or received; it can be an interaction where the message is sent, received and interpreted; or it can be… Readmore
Seeing is believing?
Published on 2011-09-19 14:29:53
I am slowly wending my way through a long, complex and incredibly important article by a group of researchers and clinicians writing about the social element of pain. The basic premise of this paper is that while pain is a private experience, we are social creatures. As social creatures, we communicate about things that are… Readmore
“Oh wad some power the giftie gie us To see oursel’s as others see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us, And foolish notion”
Published on 2011-07-03 23:41:12
That quote from Robbie Burns. For such a long time it seems that pain research has focused only on the person having pain and less on the social context where the person is experiencing it. Pain is subjective, personal and private, and the only way I
What is this thing called pain?
Published on 2011-06-30 16:04:56
As I’m busy writing up research papers for publications to “count” towards my research productivity, I’m reminded of one reason I keep on blogging – and it’s this: blogs are open to anyone. People can comment on
Black and white thinking must be abolished
Published on 2011-06-28 14:15:22
Black and white thinking, for those readers unfamiliar with cognitive distortions, refers to the tendency to reduce complex ideas and situations into simple, dichotomous, and mutually exclusive categories. Think of good or bad, yes or no, all correct
What to do about catastrophising even when you’re not a psychologist
Published on 2011-06-16 18:24:01
OK, it’s time I stopped the suspense. This post is about what to do about catastrophising even when you’re a physiotherapist, massage therapist, acupuncturist, nurse, occupational therapist, social worker – oh just about anyone wo
Quick update from earthquake city
Published on 2011-06-14 14:24:23
The aftershocks seem to have slowed a little, and they are not as powerful so hopefully things will settle down a bit. We still don’t have water, so we’re having to use our emergency stash (60 litres!) and boil it to wash, do dishes etc.
Wobbles in the Quakey Isles
Published on 2011-06-13 13:50:07
By now, if you’re a regular reader of my blog, you’ll know that I’m from Christchurch, NZ, and yes, we’ve had a few earthquakes recently! I’m happy to report that while we’ve had some more damage to the surrounds o
A brief review of cognitive behavioural approaches for pain management
Published on 2011-06-07 19:39:00
Cognitive behavioural approaches for pain management are not exactly the same as cognitive behavioural therapy for mental health problems. While there are some underlying concepts that are the same, cognitive behavioural approaches for pain managem
Catastrophising and Pain (ii)
Published on 2011-06-02 03:26:50
What are some of the indications that someone tends to catastrophise about their pain? How do we know? Do we have to use a questionnaire? Is it really my job to know about this if I’m not a psychologist – and what do I do about it? These
Pain behaviours persist…
Published on 2011-06-01 00:26:00
I’m taking a tiny detour from the world of catastrophising – but only a tiny one because catastrophising is associated with greater levels of pain behaviour, and of course, discussion about pain behaviour is how I came to begin my explora
Catastrophising and pain (i)
Published on 2011-05-30 14:15:07
One reason I love blogging is the discussion between me and readers. I wrote about the language of pain recently, and out of that discussion I’ve spent a few days digging around the literature to look at what is known about the relationship bet
The language of pain
Published on 2011-05-10 19:57:33
Have you ever wondered about the ways we communicate our pain? Pain behaviour doesn’t just include nonverbal communication – one of the main ways we communicate our pain is through speech. Words are an incredibly powerful aspect of pain b
Catastrophising and (maybe) what to do about it for subacute/chronic pain
Published on 2011-05-09 21:18:40
This post is written primarily for non-psychologists, like a few of my recent ones! This is because I think it’s vital that we avoid ring-fencing aspects of pain management by various health professions, and recognise that without a team approa
More “Psychological stuff isn’t in my scope of practice” so what can I do?
Published on 2011-05-03 14:32:40
I promised there would be more on this topic – it’s a popular one and full of vexing questions. I left off yesterday, after making four points that IMHO might help incorporate some of the psychosocial management to a nonpsychological pr
“Psychological stuff isn’t in my scope of practice” so what can I do?
Published on 2011-05-02 19:22:24
A common cry from various clinicians who work in the field of pain management but who are not psychologists is “but now what?” when they recognise that a key factor in recovery is something psychosocial. The answer is not, I suspect, head
Working inside the envelope – or pushing the boundaries
Published on 2011-04-26 14:35:40
There is something very satisfying about reading a well-designed and beautifully written research paper. Not only can it produce some helpful answers (and usually pose multiple questions!), but the process that is followed means it’s pretty eas
A new way of looking at coping, maybe?
Published on 2011-04-25 14:33:35
One half of knowing what you want is knowing what you must give up before you get it. ~Sidney Howard Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal. ~Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche There are few topics closer to my
Establishing routines and baselines: Recording daily schedules
Published on 2011-04-19 14:23:47
I don’t know about you, but I’m not the world’s best at noting down every activity I do during a day. I get engrossed in the thing I’m doing and I often get interrupted, so it’s not very easy to record my activity mome
Establishing routines and baselines: Baseline recording
Published on 2011-04-19 01:11:03
One of the problems novice clinicians often complain about is that journals and research papers rarely examine or provide practical approaches to daily problems that are encountered when working with people who have chronic pain. It can take a lot of
Friday Funnies
Published on 2011-04-14 17:06:50
It’s been a while since I posted a Friday Funnies – my apologies. I’m happy to say that despite this lack, my sense of humour has remained intact, fed by regular dollops of my favourite cartoons from The Oatmeal (who can resist the
Daily routines: a framework for healthy living
Published on 2011-04-13 14:24:15
I’m working with a couple of people who are having a good deal of trouble maintaining a routine. Things like having a reasonably regular bedtime and wakeup time, eating regularly, having periods of energising activity, and periods of rest and
Talking about it: is it worth encouraging emotional disclosure for people with pain?
Published on 2011-04-11 13:56:57
One of the more common coping strategies for people with chronic pain is talking about stressful experiences. It’s thought to be healthy to be open and express feelings, while the very idea of repressing or avoiding emotional content seems almo
What is coping?
Published on 2011-04-05 01:55:06
When we use the word ‘coping’, what do we mean? Recently, I’ve been reviewing the whole concept of coping in chronic pain. I’m trying to establish how people with chronic pain view this term, and what they include in their r
Moodjuice!
Published on 2011-03-30 15:12:26
I had a nice email from James Hardie from Moodjuice website, an NHS Scotland site developed for both health professionals and individuals to access self help resources. For patients, the site starts by saying “Emotional problems are often the m
What do people expect when they get referred to a pain management centre?
Published on 2011-03-29 13:25:34
It can take years for someone to be referred to a pain management service. In fact, in a study of patients accepted into the three week pain management programme at Burwood Pain Management Centre, the average duration of pain was 4 years, give or tak
“It’s there and I’m stuck with it” – chronic knee pain after knee joint replacement
Published on 2011-03-22 13:22:40
I share an office with an Emeritus Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery. He snorted at me one day, and showed me the stats from our national joint register database where I saw that while the main reason given for revision of a total hip joint was disl
Making self-help more helpful
Published on 2011-03-20 14:20:16
One of the things that appeals about self-managing chronic pain is that it doesn’t require endless appointments. If life is for living, why spend it sitting in a waiting room? (they never have up-to-date magazines anyway!) Our problem as health
Opportunity for a conversation
Published on 2011-03-08 21:13:32
I had a wonderful discussion with another occupational therapist about the profession’s response to the earthquake. ”How”, she asked, “Can occupational therapists from the other end of the country help those in Christchurch?
After quake aftermath
Published on 2011-03-06 21:16:10
Once again I’m lead to pondering the different ways my situation has affected me, and what might be helpful to mitigate some of the less frequently mentioned aspects of coping in a disaster. Like many people, I’m still managing with quite
Friday in Christchurch
Published on 2011-03-03 17:05:25
Despite the devastation, there are some wonderful sights in Christchurch right now. This one (above) made me smile today. And this one was taken in Nelson after we had turned back to return to Christchurch last week. Cheerful things, sunflowers,
Living well with chronic pain: A grounded theory study
Published on 2011-03-01 21:19:00
While ‘coping’ with chronic pain has been studied extensively, the people usually studied have been those seeking treatment, and because of this, little is known about how people cope well despite their pain. A large group of people experiencin
An ‘occupational’ view of the Christchurch earthquake
Published on 2011-02-28 18:34:39
The picture – what greeted us as we walked through the front door – and that sparkly stuff on the ground? It’s all my crystal in tiny sharp shards…The wooden thing you can see is the bottom of our sideboard, and to the far rig
Earthquake aftermath
Published on 2011-02-25 15:52:26
Dear Readers I have had many, many expressions of concern since the earthquake struck Christchurch again on Tuesday 22 February 2011. I’m glad to say that me and my family have escaped relatively unscathed from this traumatic event – I
Friday Meditation
Published on 2011-02-10 15:04:50
As you know, Friday is about getting ready for the weekend. Today I decided not to pass on some of the horrendous puns shared with me by one of my esteemed colleagues (although I may drop just one in because I can!). Instead I thought this poem i
More on choosing chronic pain questionnaires
Published on 2011-02-09 02:56:40
Mood and anxiety - depression, anxiety and pain-specific anxiety were chosen because of their importance to outcomes, and the need to treat psychopathology Catastrophising – because this is thought to be one of the most important aspects of cogniti
Choosing Chronic Pain Questionnaires
Published on 2011-02-08 12:31:33
In my last post I started to discuss the questionnaire domains that can be used in a battery of questionnaires for chronic pain. Today it’s time to turn to the specific measures that we’ve chosen as part of a set that a group working ac
Choosing chronic pain questionnaires
Published on 2011-02-06 23:53:13
Choosing a set of questionnaires for an assessment battery can be a task fraught with all kinds of traps, because if there is one thing bound to get clinical tongues flapping, it’s the idea that their favourite questionnaire will be left out of
CBT approach in the real world
Published on 2011-02-02 13:33:39
While there are many papers published about the outcomes from using a cognitive behavioural approach, there are very few describing the process ‘in the real world’. This leaves a gap for many clinicians who may read about it, maybe have t
Occupational Therapy & the Cognitive Behavioural Approach For Pain Management – ii
Published on 2011-01-31 11:46:19
In the first post on my commentary of Robinson, Kennedy and Harmon’s review of occupational therapy for chronic pain, I argued that they have misinterpreted the cognitive behavioural approach to pain management, and in particular, that they app
Occupational therapy & the cognitive behavioural approach for pain management
Published on 2011-01-29 13:00:53
I have always resisted being labelled. I am much more than my gender, my marital status, my diagnosis, my professional background. I also feel quite uncomfortable about being told what I may or may not do (maybe that’s where my kids get it fr
Friday Funnies
Published on 2011-01-27 15:17:35
Mapping my desk. Familiar to anyone? I’ll be off to see the Buskers this weekend - go here if you don’t know what I’m talking about. The very best of the world’s buskers are here, and it’s awesome! Filed under: Humour, R
Pulling it all together – biopsychosocial assessment
Published on 2011-01-25 19:00:45
Over the past little while I’ve been writing about how a comprehensive pain assessment can be carried out. Today it’s time to pull that information together to develop a formulation, or set of possible explanations for why this person p
Pulling the biopsychosocial assessment together
Published on 2011-01-23 19:25:20
Over the past couple of posts I’ve described one way to assess a person’s chronic pain presentation from a medical, psychosocial and functional perspective. I don’t think there is much difficulty in seeing how these three perspect
Friday Funnies!
Published on 2011-01-20 13:49:16
No further comment required. Filed under: Humour, Pain, Resilience/Health, Wellness Tagged: activity, coping, Friday funnies, funny, Health, Humour
A comprehensive pain assessment continued
Published on 2011-01-19 12:41:54
One of the hallmarks of chronic pain is the effect on functional performance. It’s for this reason alone that an assessment of function needs to be a major part of any comprehensive pain assessment. This, however, is probably where agreemen
A comprehensive pain assessment
Published on 2011-01-18 12:15:38
What makes up a comprehensive pain assessment? I could begin and never end this particular topic, I know, so I’ll try to confine myself to some of the major themes as I see it. While this is my opinion, and readers should always remember th
Working out who does what: Teamwork at its best
Published on 2011-01-11 17:17:08
I work in a large team of clinicians. We have clinicians from occupational therapy, physiotherapy, nursing, social work, clinical psychology and specialist medics with anaesthetic, musculoskeletal and occupational backgrounds. Teamwork is absolut
Brain training – it happens all the time
Published on 2011-01-10 15:40:09
At the risk of seeming untrendy, the trend to rave on about neuroplasticity can be a bit overdone. Not, I add quickly, because it doesn’t happen, or it’s not important – in fact, quite the opposite – but because it happens a
It’s really all about the brain
Published on 2011-01-09 21:02:46
Neuroscience is such a geeky area to study. And I have to say I didn’t really study the brain all that well in my undergraduate training all those years ago – but oh, how the worm has turned! It’s so exciting to see how basic scienc
Friday Funnies!
Published on 2011-01-06 14:57:13
After a strenuous week (well, OK, maybe two days is not quite a week) – here’s SuperTherapist and featuring for the first time, Puddy, her cat! Why is it that cat’s always get the last word? Filed under: Humour, Wellness Tagged: cop
Sleep – Posts from 2010
Published on 2011-01-05 12:13:48
Sleep is so important for wellbeing (ask any young parent!), and yet many people with chronic pain have really poor and unrefreshing sleep, and very poor sleep habits. Some pain conditions show changes to the quality of the sleep stages (such as fi
A New Year’s Resolution
Published on 2011-01-02 17:27:54
If you, like me, have struggled to find a post on here – then looked at the Categories list, and sighed at how many posts there are…I hereby renounce my old habit of posting under multiple topic headings and promise to limit each post to
2010 in review
Published on 2011-01-02 17:22:39
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health: The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow. Crunchy numbers The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per ye
All about you and me: How health professionals influence pain management
Published on 2011-01-02 14:18:51
As I’ve reviewed my year’s postings, I’ve identified a few themes, and one of them is the focus on what we do as clinicians, and how this influences the people we work with and for. Here are links to the posts from 2010 on this to
2010 in review
Published on 2011-01-02 13:34:50
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health: The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow. Crunchy numbers The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per ye