(calm piano music)
- The Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center has been
in existence for nearly 20 years,
and our mission is to do research
that helps better understand how to diagnose
and treat individuals that have chronic pain.
- What we know is about 100 million Americans suffer
with chronic pain, and chronic pain
affects every aspect of one's life.
One's work life, one's social life, one's dreams and hopes,
and even their understanding of who they are.
And one of the things that I think we address
not as frequently as we should is really quality of life.
How do we help our patients thrive and not just survive?
And that really has been kind of a cornerstone
of the work that we do at the Center.
- I think the work that's done
in the Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center
has the opportunity to revolutionize
how pain is managed in the world.
We are too quick to go to the easy things
like surgery, injections, and oftentimes
miss the opportunity to do some of the harder things
like talking to patients, educating patients,
thinking about really altering how they eat and sleep
and go about their day, and also their social interactions.
The importance of understanding their environment.
- A lot of the work that our group has done
over the years is to better understand
the contribution that the central nervous system
is having to chronic pain states.
It used to be thought that most pain was occurring
because there was damage or inflammation
in the region of the body where the person
was experiencing pain, but with the advent
of research techniques like neuroimaging,
our group and others have shown
that a lot of chronic pain conditions seem
to be coming more so from the brain than the area
of the body where the person's experiencing pain.
- Patients who have pain in one part
of their body are really very different
from patients who have pain throughout their body.
And we've seen that the brain is actually
responding to pain in a different way
in the patients who have widespread pain.
- They may be just wired differently.
And because they're wired differently,
I think it makes sense that they
should be treated differently.
- What is really important for clinicians is
that they should look at the whole person
and think about maybe using central reacting agents
or central reacting interventions that target the brain
and spinal chord rather than just going in
and cutting out the area of the body
that seems to be sensing pain.
- There's a number of behavioral lifestyle skills
that can be included in chronic pain management.
For many years, we have known that
there are non-pharmacological and self-management
approaches that can be effective, however these
are not routinely included in clinical practice.
- We're also beginning to better understand
that long-term opioid use for the treatment
of chronic, non-cancer pain is
probably not helpful for most patients.
And both with education as well as other multi-model ways
to treat pain, I think we're doing a little bit better job
of offering patients alternative
as well as more effective ways to manage their pain.
- So many Americans are using opioids
for chronic pain management despite the fact
that there's not good evidence that they should be doing so,
that they're addictive, and that they cause
tens of thousands of deaths each year.
- My feeling is that we're moving towards
really an integrative medical model.
No one treatment is gonna be magic pill,
it's gonna require a combination of multiple treatments
with a team of caregivers that
are coordinating care for the patient.
I think that's ultimately what's the best approach.
- During my time at the Center,
I've really enjoyed being able to work
with a variety of different clinicians
and different researchers and different departments
to really try to look at pain
from a variety of different angles.
And I really think that since pain is
so multi-factorial, that it really
requires a multi-disciplinary approach
to figure out the underlying mechanisms.
- It's a really important group for thinking
about how we can impact patients all the way
from mechanism to implementation into clinic.
And I think that that's what really drives myself
and my colleagues, is thinking about that impact
on patients' lives and their families
and friends, and being able to see that.
And so that's a real pleasure.
(calm piano music)