| Description | Chronic pain is one of the most common reasons that patients seek medical attention, affecting more than 50 million children and adults in the United States. Chronic pain does not solely arise from initiating biomedical causes of disease or physical injury; high impact chronic pain is both amplified and perpetuated by psychological and socially traumatic events. Among current health and social traumas, the current Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated long-standing difficulties accessing already scare multidisciplinary pain care, threatening vulnerable communities and socially isolating and economically disrupting the lives of our patients with chronic pain. Yet, there have been encouraging developments for improved delivery of comprehensive biopsychosocial pain services in the explosive adoption of telehealth technology and demonstrated clinical resourcefulness in its applications. The 14th Annual John D. Loeser Pain Conference will this year be presented as an on-line CME course, focusing on the biopsychosocial mechanisms that increase risk of initial acute painful injury transitioning into chronic pain, and emphasizing identification and multidisciplinary approaches to prevention and treatment. We will emphasize vulnerable populations, review clinician-led approaches to patient pain education, propose why opioids may interfere with improvement, and how multidisciplinary care delivered via telehealth offers opportunities to increase access to effective chronic pain management. |
|---|