WHAT IS PAIN NEUROSCIENCE EDUCATION ?
Pain neuroscience education (PNE) is education focused on the neurobiology and physiology of pain.
This assists patients to reconceptualise the way they perceive pain, moving away from a view that pain indicates tissue damage (Louw, Diener, Butler, & Puentedura, 2011) to a biopsychosocial understanding of pain (King et al., 2018).
Education is strongly recommended for treatment with chronic lower back pain and neck pain (Oliveira et al., 2018).
HOW DOES EDUCATION WORK ?
Can you change my pain even if you don't touch me?
The science says education about pain can;
empower patients to actively problem solve pain flair ups(Louw et al., 2011).
help patients increase activity tolerance (Marris, Theophanous, & Donaldson, 2019),
enables the patient to fully understand how their thoughts , beliefs, behaviour and environment may influence and perpetuate their pain experience (Adams & Turk, 2018).
improve confidence managing pain (Silva Guerrero et al., 2018).
PNE in patients with back pain have been shown to reduce:
how bad it feels and how dangerous, at long term followup
reducing depression in the short term(Silva Guerrero et al., 2018).
in conjunction with exercise, pain education can improve patient’s pain and disability in short term follow up in chronic lower back pain (CLBP) (Wood & Hendrick, 2019).
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