Understand Pain Live Well Again

This book offers people and busy practitioners an additional tool with which to better understand their clients pain neurophysiology and pain management education.

The information you are about to read was written to provide health care practitioners with an additional tool for educating their patients with pain. Many times I have been asked for a handout to go along with my Overcome Pain, Live Well Again education seminars, and even more times clinicians have asked me if there is something that will help them educate their clients… “without it taking so much time!” Traditionally, pain neurophysiology education takes two to three hours. It is perceived by many as expensive and inefficient, even though the research shows it can be highly beneficial. Much of the information presented in this book draws from knowledge I have gained from Lorimer Moseley and David Butler. These two physiotherapists and educators have provided many original concepts about pain neurophysiology in their excellent book Explain Pain. A number of their ideas are paraphrased here, including the powerful therapeutic question, “How dangerous is this really?”, and the concept of discussing input from the nociceptive system as danger signals. It is imperative that clinicians clearly understand these concepts. We must be able to discuss pain neurophysiology easily with our clients, and make the information relevant to their situation. Any clinician setting out to educate people about pain should own Explain Pain, be intimate with its contents, and have it available for their clients.

Neil Pearson Neil is the founder and director of Neil Pearson Physiotherapist Corporation, which operates as life is now. He focuses on providing the knowledge and tools for effective pain self-management, through two avenues: Pain Care Education, and Pain Care Yoga. Neil works as a registered physiotherapist, and a certified yoga therapist in Penticton, BC, Canada. He is an educator: Clinical Assistant Professor at University of British Columbia, faculty with the BC Medical Association enhancing knowledge and clinical practice of primary care MDs, and a faculty member in five yoga therapist training programs. Near home, he is active in providing, and researching the effectiveness of group pain education within both primary and secondary pain care. Neil is the founding Chair of the Pain Science Division of the Canadian Physiotherapy Association, and the first PT recipient of the Canadian Pain Society’s top honour for Excellence in Interprofessional Pain Education.