Airing Pain 1: Introduction to Pain

What is chron­ic pain and how can we man­age it? We talk to health pro­fes­sion­als and patients to find out more

In the first Air­ing Pain pro­gramme we intro­duce the sub­ject of pain and its man­age­ment, fea­tur­ing con­trib­u­tors with a vari­ety of exper­tise and expe­ri­ence. Pro­fes­sors Blair Smith and Richard Lang­ford take us through the caus­es of chron­ic pain and con­di­tions asso­ci­at­ed with it, while Sher­rill Snel­grove and Kiera Jones talk about the chal­lenges faced by patients in being under­stood by the health­care pro­fes­sions. Dr Bev­er­ly Col­lett explains the impor­tance of the patients’ own under­stand­ing in man­ag­ing their con­di­tion and keep­ing active.

We also fea­ture short inter­views with some of the experts we’ll hear more from in lat­er pro­grammes: Pro­fes­sor David Walsh dis­cuss­es the impor­tance of mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary approach­es in help­ing patients to man­age their pain, Pro­fes­sor Nick Alcott and Claire Rayn­er encour­age old­er peo­ple to get help with their pain and Nicole Tang talks about how peo­ple with pain can improve their sleep, and final­ly, Pete Moore gives some words of encour­age­ment based on his own expe­ri­ence of learn­ing to live well with pain.

Issues cov­ered in this pro­gramme include: Ache, arthri­tis, back pain, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, com­pas­sion, describing/explaining pain, health pro­fes­sion­als, injury, insom­nia, iso­la­tion, limbs, mea­sur­ing pain, mis­con­cep­tions, mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary, mus­cu­loskele­tal, neck pain, neu­ro­path­ic pain, no vis­i­ble cause, old age, patients, peer sup­port, pri­ma­ry care, pro­grammes, sec­ondary care and therapy.

Con­trib­u­tors:

• Dr Bev­er­ly Col­lett, Intro­duc­tion to Pain
• Dr Sher­rill Snel­grove, Chron­ic Low­er Back Pain
• Kiera Jones, Per­son­al Story
• Dr David Laird, Pacing
• Dr Steve Allen, Pain Clinics
• Claire Rayn­er, Patron of Pain Con­cern, Nurs­ing and Pain/Patron’s Voice
• Pro­fes­sor Blair Smith, “What is Pain?”
• Pro­fes­sor Richard Lang­ford, The British Pain Society
• Pro­fes­sor David Walsh, Arthri­tis Relat­ed Pain
• Ian Sem­mons (Chair, Action on Pain), Action on Pain
• Pro­fes­sor Nick All­cock, Pain in Old­er People
• Dr Nicole Tang, Sleep and Pain
• Pete Moore, Liv­ing with Pain.