Women'S Health: Chronic Pain

Course overview

Chronic pain, continuous pain that lasts for more than three months, brings sufferers to physician offices more than 50 million times yearly. Unlike acute pain, which is generally self-limiting and highly treatable, long-standing pain is often seen as a disease in itself. Chronic pain frequently leads to depression, sleep problems, and loss of function at work and in everyday activities. For clinicians, long-term management of chronic pain requires a full understanding of the latest research on addiction, tolerance, and dependence issues, as well as the psychosocial factors affecting chronic pain. This home study course focuses on chronic pain in women because women are especially affected by it. According to a study published in the European Journal of Chronic Pain in 2005, women report more pain intensity than men, more disability, and lower vitality as a result of chronic pain conditions. The course covers the most recent findings on a number of the most common conditions that underlie chronic pain in women, including: back pain, breast pain, fibromyalgia, lupus, arthritis, scleroderma, trigeminal neuralgia, pelvic pain, central pain syndrome, peripheral neuropathy, and others. Recent information about managing these painful conditions is the main focus of the course. In addition to the newest pharmacological approaches, the course material details surgical and other interventions including alternative and home treatments and over-the-counter options. In addition, the course offers new research on the powerful role that patients' beliefs, culture, and knowledge play in sufferers perception of their pain and their ability to regain function and optimism in the face of a chronic condition.