OVERVIEW

Chronic Pain - The Basics is organized by AAACEUs. This Course has been approved for a maximum of Credit Hours: 6.

Course Overview:
Outline:
• Introduction: The Universal Disorder
• A Brief History of Pain
• Pain: The Gift that Nobody Wants
• A Pain Primer: What Do We Know About Pain?
• The Faces of Pain: Neuropathic, Acute, and Chronic
• Treatment options for neuropathic pain
• When acute pain becomes chronic pain
• Chronic pain development
• Chronic Pain as a Disease
1. The experience of chronic pain
• Modern theories of chronic pain
1. Overview of chronic pain
2. The specificity theory of pain
• Problems with the specificity theory and chronic pain
• Modern Ideas: The Gate Control Theory of chronic pain
• Central nervous system (the spinal cord and the brain)
• The peripheral nervous system
• The Spinal Cord and Pain
• The Brain
• Opening and closing the pain gates
• The Gate Control Theory in Action
• The A to Z of Pain
• What conditions are associated with low back pain?
• How is low back pain diagnosed?
• How is back pain treated?
• Can back pain be prevented?
1. Is there any treatment?
2. What is the prognosis?
3. How is Pain Diagnosed?
4. How is Pain Treated?
• Chili Peppers, Capsaicin, and Pain
• Narcotics (see Opioids, below)
• What is the Role of Age and Gender in Pain?
• Pain in Aging and Pediatric Populations: Special Needs and Concerns
• What is the Future of Pain Research?
• Hope for the Future

Course Objectives:
• Define Acute and Chronic Pain.
• Understand the ways in which pain is diagnosed and treated.
• Explain the effect of gender and age on chronic pain.
• Understand the spinal basics: Vertebrae, Discs, and Spinal Cord.