Pain Neuroscience and the Older Adult (Recorded Webinar)

Course overview

As the world population ages, we must reevaluate our pain paradigms in the older adult population. It is overwhelmingly shown that older patients hurt not because they are old but because they stop moving. Fear avoidance and pain catastrophizing, driven by misbeliefs regarding aging, greatly limit movement. Recent pain neuroscience education (PNE) research has shown that normalizing pain beliefs, including the role of aging and pain, powerfully influences movement, pain, and disability, even in older adults. Additionally, therapeutic strategies aimed at altering brain mapping of people in pain, including older adults, open up new avenues to help ease pain and disability. This webinar will explore the myth of aging and pain, the evolution and evidence for PNE and graded motor imagery, and how various ready-to-use examination and treatment techniques can help older adults with much-needed pain relief, improved movement, and improved quality of life.