Pain Management Conference Agenda

The dinner party and conference will be held at The Dana On Mission Bay, 1710 W Mission Bay Dr, San Diego, CA 92109. Venue & visiting info

Pain Conference Agenda

Intermediate level instruction consisting of lecture and group discussions.

Detailed speaker biographies can be read here

Friday, March 1 - Interactive sessions

7:00 am - Registration/Check in

8 am - 11am - Melanie Noel, Ph.D., RPsych & Joletta Belton: Validation Of People Living With Pain In The Clinical Encounter: An Interactive Workshop 

• About: In this interactive workshop, Dr. Noel will review the literature and evidence on the role of validation in pain and co-occurring mental health issues. She will teach the various levels of validation and incorporate this into role plays and interactions with attendees. Attendees will learn how, when, and what to validate in clinical encounters with people living with pain and have tangible skills that can be used in their clinical practice. Avenues for intervention, prevention, and research will be discussed.

• Objective: Describe how, when, and what to validate in clinical encounters with people living with pain and apply tangible skills that can be used in clinical practice.

8:45-9 am - Break

9:45-10 am - Break

11 am - End

11-12 pm Lunch

12- pm - 2:30 pm - Michael Falcon,OTD, OTR/L, MHA: Intersectionality of Professional Pain Cultures: Research, Academia, Healthcare, and the Clinician

• About: Culture can be described as the collective social behaviors, institutional expectations and the general societal norms that guide how we interact in society. Professional cultures exist with similar guiding influences in healthcare and the academic institutions that educate our healthcare professionals. This course will guide a discussion around culture and its influence on how clinical and academic professionals engage with pain science. Attendees will engage in a collective conversation to examine this intersectionality and challenge individuals to reflect on their own contribution to these cultural norms and expectations.

• Objective: Discuss the cultures that influence health care professionals and examine the intersectionality of professional pain cultures and how they may influence pain science.

12:45-1 pm - Break

1:45-2 pm - Break

2:30pm - End

2:45 pm - Dance break with Dr. Daria Oller

3:30 - Break

4 pm - 5:45 pm - Peter Stilwell, Ph.D. & Jackie Walumbe, MSc, BSc, DPhil: What Is Your Philosophy Of Pain? Let’s Reflect On Our Assumptions

• About: In this joint presentation and discussion session, Peter Stilwell and Jackie Walumbe will prompt you to reflect on your philosophy of pain, and you will be exposed to some evolving pain theories that might get you thinking and acting in new ways. Both speakers will provide 20-minute talks. After these talks, you will be given questions to discuss in small groups (30 mins). We will subsequently come together as a large group, and one person from each group will summarize your discussion (20 mins). During this time, you can also ask the speakers questions.

• Objective: Recognize your assumptions about pain and examine other perspectives.

  • Dr. Stilwell's talk: He will suggest that making your philosophy and specific assumptions more explicit can help you apply it with intention or maybe even consider revising aspects. Subsequently, he will provide a brief overview of different philosophies of pain and their implications. He will focus on enactivism and how it helps fill some of the theoretical limitations and gaps in the biopsychosocial model. He will outline “4Es” that form the foundation for an enactive approach to pain: the idea that the pain experience is Embodied, Embedded, Extended, and Enacted. Finally, some implications of this philosophy will be shared.

  • Dr. Walumbe's talk: Jackie will present on the multiple realities of pain, and how the concept might be useful for clinicians, researchers, and people living with pain. Jackie will start by briefly outlining the philosophy informing multiple realities/ontologies. Drawing on and extending the seminal work of Annemarie Mol and Scott Graham's exploration of the polities of pain, she will present multiple realities/ontologies of pain that influence which pain services are set up and how they're delivered.

    Jackie will conclude by arguing that the presence of contrasting pain realities/ontologies contributes to practitioners experiencing ontological conflict when trying to deliver modernized, technocratic pain services. Patients and practitioners both experience uncertainty and related distress when negotiating the health care system.

5:10-5:25 pm - Break

5:45 pm - End

7 pm - Dinner Party (Onsite at The Dana on Mission Bay).

• Casual dress, buffet style (religious & dietary considerations), photo booth, live music, & MAGIC!
  

Saturday, March 2

8:30 am Registration/Check in

9:30 am - Keynote Cassandra Macgregor, PT & Joletta Belton: What Is ‘Acceptance’ Of Chronic Pain? An Ecosystem Approach And Its Implications For Practice.

• About: What is ‘acceptance’ of chronic pain? What do we ‘accept’ when it comes to chronic pain, and what do we not? Acceptance is not easy to define and can have many different conceptualizations and meanings, including ‘accepting’ as a verb due to its ongoing nature. 

  Cass will give an overview of her new research: ‘An ecosystem of accepting life with chronic pain’ in which a fluid and continuous journey for the person with pain contains fluctuating states, a turning point and iterative steps, embedded within our socio-cultural-political worlds.

  We will explore what all this means for practice, and make the case that pain research on complex topics such as acceptance is made more relevant by using the methods that attend to the ways knowledge is constructed. We will finish with some probing questions for discussion: What is our role in the political? What ways might practitioners consider their roles in the ecosystem? Is it possible to find meaning in this work for clinicians as well as for people living with pain? How can we best do this hard work together?

• Objective: Examine awareness and understanding of the complex nature of ‘acceptance’ of chronic pain, and how meaning made by the individual takes place within a socio-cultural-political context, where we play an active role as health care practitioners.

10:15 am - Q/A

10:30 am - Break/Dr. Bahram Jam, Evolution of Pain (from his musical, PAIN: The Musical)

10:45 am - Dershnee Devan, OT: The Role Of Perceived Injustice In The Pain Experience

• About: The talk will cover the definition, types of injustice, the theory behind the psychosocial concept of perceived injustice. In addition assessment of perceived injustice and the treatment approach for perceived injustice for people with chronic pain will be discussed. The focus will be on the therapeutic relationship and perceived injustice as well current recommended treatment modalities.

• Objective: Explain the role of perceived injustice in the pain experience and discuss ways to address this in their treatment approach for people with chronic pain.

11:30 am - Q/A

11:45 am - Lunch

12:45 pm -  prize giveaways

1 pm - Timothy Wideman, Ph.D.: Suffering: Getting To The Heart Of The Pain Problem

• About: Chronic pain is one of the most prevalent and costly health conditions. For many people, the most challenging aspect of living with chronic pain is that it causes considerable personal suffering. Yet, researchers and clinicians lack basic resources to help recognize, understand and target suffering that is caused by pain, or pain-related suffering. This presentation aims to review what we know, and don’t yet know, about pain-related suffering and then to offer reflections on directions for future research and practice.

  A core defining aspect of pain-related suffering is disruption to one’s sense of self. This can involve pain disrupting one’s self-identity, such as when pain undermines engagement in important life domains (work, family, social life). This can also involve pain disrupting one’s capacity to navigate basic functions of daily life, such as control over one’s thoughts, emotions or actions. Understanding these different modes of self-disruption is expected to be a vital key to recognizing suffering among people living with chronic pain. The presentation will explore how pain-related suffering can be situated within our broader understanding of pain, as well as clinical implications for clinical care.

• Objective: Examine the latest literature on pain-related suffering and apply this knowledge to clinical practice and

  research.

1:45 pm - Q/A

2 pm - Break

2:15 pm - Tim Salomons, Ph.D.: What Is Pain And Why Does It Matter?

• About: Pain can be viewed as a simple reflection of injury, largely driven by events in the periphery, or as a complex mental phenomenon requiring high level cortical processing. In this talk, I will discuss how the general public views pain, and practical ways in which this has entered public discourse, including the US Supreme Court case that overturned Roe v. Wade

• Objective: Analyze how our latent view of pain might affect personal and public decision making

3 pm - Q/A

3:15 pm - Break

3:30 pm - Felicity Braithwaite, Ph.D.: Working With Osteoarthritis Patients As Co-Researchers – Co-Designing Translational Research Solutions And Busting Osteoarthritis Myths

• About: Researchers often try to determine solutions to health problems without involving people with lived experience. We worked with osteoarthritis consumers in partnership as ‘co-researchers’ using co-design workshops to identify barriers to best-practice conservative management and suggested solutions. Co-researchers also identified the most important osteoarthritis myths that reduce engagement with best-practice management including exercise/physical activity. We are now creating educational ‘myth-busting’ resources (e.g., videos) with the co-researchers through continued co-design.

• Objective: Examine the value of co-design and collaborating with patients at the equal partnership level.

4:15 pm - Q/A

4:30 pm - End

5 pm - 6 pm - (Group table set up inside conference hall) DisruptOT & PT After Dark are teaming up for a joint discussion session! Discussion will be on the relevant cultural, health, and social considerations of making our clinical work more accessible and inclusive. Pizza provided by WellWrx Consulting.

Sunday, March 3

8:30 am - Keynote Tasha Stanton, Ph.D.: Pushing The Boundaries Of Perception For Chronic Pain Treatment

• About: We often assume that what we experience is objective “reality”. In truth, each of us experiences our own unique “reality”, based upon the integration of incoming sensory input with our past experiences and our expectations. And bodily feelings, like pain or stiffness, are no exception; growing evidence suggests that they are complex emergent phenomena that can be influenced by many things.

  This talk will explore the unconscious cognitive and sensory contributors to our experiences, and how altering these contributors can ultimately shape our experiences, and thus, identify important therapeutic possibilities. I will specifically explore new findings from virtual and mediated reality showing that altering sensory cues can influence bodily feelings like pain. I will explore the potential use of virtual technologies for improving exercise-based interventions – such as to improve exercise experiences and/or promote engagement. Finally, I will explore the evidence for perceptual dysfunction in chronic pain and how we may target this using various sensory based methods.

• Objective: Examine how altering sensory cues can influence pain, including increased knowledge of new technologies being used for this purpose

9:15 am - Q/A

9:30 am - Break

9:45 am - Lauren Heathcote, Ph.D.: From Magic Pills To Mindsets: Ethically Harnessing Placebo Effects In Pain Care

• About: The placebo effect has long been viewed as a villain in pain medicine. When promising new pain treatments fail to outperform a placebo, our hopes are dashed, and the treatment is abandoned. Yet, the placebo effect is inherent and active within every treatment that we deliver. What if we can instead harness the placebo effect to improve pain medicine and clinical care? In this talk, Dr. Heathcote will share new research that seeks to unpack the mechanisms underlying placebo effects, including the role of social context and mindsets. She will discuss how her research team are using this knowledge to improve existing treatments and develop new treatments for pain, as well as other physical symptoms, across diverse clinical populations such as cancer, allergy, and chronic pain. This work represents a step-change in pain science, moving away from viewing the placebo effect as a villain and towards ethically harnessing the mechanisms underlying the placebo effect to improve pain care.

• Objective: Differentiate what really underlies the placebo effect, including mindsets about treatments and our bodies, and how this understanding can be leveraged to ethically improve pain care.

10:30 am - Q/A

10:45 am - Break

10:55 am - Dr. Bahram Jam, Talk To Pain (from his musical, PAIN: The Musical)

11 am - Robert Coghill, Ph.D.: Pain: A Distributed Problem That Requires A Distributed Solution

• About: Understanding of central nervous system mechanisms supporting the experience of pain remains remarkably limited.  This lack of understanding produces major challenges when seeking to better diagnose and treat chronic pain.  A new framework - The Distributed Nociceptive System - emphasizes system-level aspects of nociceptive processing by incorporating population coding and distributed process. The Distributed Nociceptive System provides a conceptual structure for understanding the resiliency and complex spatial aspects of chronic pain.  This framework supports that concept that pain is a distributed problem that requires a distributed solution and provides a clear rationale for the further development of multi-disciplinary treatments for chronic pain.

• Objectives: Define how nociceptive processing is distributed within the spinal cord and brain. Appraise how this distribution creates a highly resilient system. Using the conceptual framework of the distributed nociceptive system, evaluate how multidisciplinary therapy is potentially more effective than mono-therapy.

11:45 am - Q/A

12 pm - Lunch

12:45 prize giveaways

1 pm - Katleho Limakatso, Ph.D.: A Novel Approach To Managing Post-Amputation Pain: An Interdisciplinary Perspective

• About: Despite a growing body of the literature on post-amputation pain, there has been little convergence in understanding the nature of this peculiar syndrome. This presentation will explore the epidemiology, physiological mechanisms, interdisciplinary management, and key considerations involved in designing and implementing complex interventions for post-amputation pain.

• Objective: Propose practical insights and strategies for healthcare professionals to effectively manage post-amputation pain using an interdisciplinary approach.

1:45 pm - Q/A

2 pm - Break

2:15 pm - Meryl Alappattu, DPT, Ph.D.: Underserved And Undertreated: Addressing Gaps In rehabilitation Following Gender Affirming Surgery

• About: Transgender individuals (part of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community) who seek gender affirming surgical treatments are an underserved population and at-risk for disparate healthcare. However, little is known about the rates of sexual and musculoskeletal pain disorders such as shoulder pain, spinal pain, and pelvic/pelvic girdle pain after gender affirming surgery. This paucity in the literature is surprising, given the recognized prevalence of these pain conditions after similar surgical interventions for other health-related reasons. This presentation will provide data from a mixed-methods study of individuals who have recently undergone gender affirming surgical procedures to identify existing gaps in pre- and post-surgical recovery and rehabilitation.

• Objectives: Describe the rates of musculoskeletal pain and sexual dysfunction following gender affirming surgical procedures. Discuss potential person- (individual) and system-level methods to address the gaps in the healthcare experiences of individuals undergoing these procedures

3 pm - Q/A

3:15 pm - Break

3:30 pm - Anna Marie LaChance, Ph.D.: All Care Can Be Gender-Affirming: Best Practices for Treating Trans Patients

• About: For a variety of reasons, transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people often don't receive proper health care. In this talk, transgender advocate Dr. Anna Marie LaChance will share her experience as a trans person navigating the world of health care and provide recommendations for providers on how to make their practice actively trans-inclusive.

• Objective: Develop actionable items to make your practice trans-inclusive.

4:15 pm - Q/A

4:30 pm - Break

4:45 pm - Aidan Cashin, Ph.D.: Conceptualizing and Managing Chronic Low Back Pain from a Fit-For-Purpose-Model Perspective

• About: An improved understanding of the biopsychosocial influences that contribute to and maintain pain has prompted the development of new explanatory models and treatment strategies for chronic low back pain. This presentation will introduce the Fit-For-Purpose-Model (FFPM), a contemporary treatment framework to help make sense of the complexity of chronic low back pain, and an associated treatment approach, education and graded sensorimotor retraining, which has demonstrated clinically meaningful effects for people with chronic low back pain in a recent sham-controlled trial.

• Objectives: Identify and assess biological, psychological, and social contributors to chronic pain through a Fit-For-Purpose-Model perspective. Evaluate graded sensorimotor retraining intervention to address salient contributors to chronic low back pain. Identify the mechanisms through which an education and graded sensorimotor retraining intervention provides clinically meaningful reductions in pain and disability. Examine your ability to conduct and implement contemporary, coherent, biopsychosocially informed management for people with chronic low back pain. 

5:30 pm - Q/A

5:45 pm - End