Persistent pain – pain which lasts more than three months following the initial injury – is a very common occurrence in Ireland. Some research suggests that over a third of Irish adults may be impacted by the condition1 and up to half of those may be people suffering with low back pain. Pain is as unique as the person experiencing it, but increasing numbers of studies show that understanding the condition is a key step in learning to overcome it2.
There is a lot of information available about pain online, and it can be sometimes challenging to sort the wheat from the chaff. An excellent non-technical guide to the topic has been published by the Tasmanian Health Service3. This guide follows the best available evidence, and shows how we as osteopaths can help you on your journey, by following these steps:
1. Taking your case history and conducting a thorough examination; this allows us to rule out certain health conditions which can present as musculoskeletal pain.
2. Education: we can help you to understand how and why pain may be occurring, and most importantly, what can be done to overcome it.
3. Goal setting: helping you to identify goals which are important to you, and developing a progressive programme to get you there.
4. Introducing movement: through hands-on treatment and exercise prescription, we can reintroduce patterns of movement which may have been reduced by pain
5. Listening: everything we do is based on your values. We’re there to listen to you explore them.
References:
1. Slattery et al. (2011). Prevalence, impact and cost of multimorbidity in a cohort of people with chronic pain in Ireland: a study protocol. BMJ Open, 7:e012131, 1-8.
2. Foster et al. (2018). Prevention and treatment of low back pain: evidence, challenges and promising directions. The Lancet, 391(10137), 2368-2383.
3. Tasmanian Health Service. (2014). Understanding Persistent Pain: How to turn down the volume on Persistent Pain. Available from: https://outpatients.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/172578/CSS_-_Physiotherapy_-_Understanding_Persistent_Pain_Booklet.pdf
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