Chronic pain affects 20% of people in the US, with an estimated annual cost of more than $600 billion. The most common type is chronic back pain (CBP). CBP is a leading cause of disability, and treatment is often ineffective. A study in JAMA Psychiatry reported that primary chronic back pain treatment with psychological sessions may provide pain relief. In the randomized clinical trial, the effects of Pain reprocessing therapy vs placebo for patients with chronic back pain was tested.
What does this Mean?
Could psychological treatments focused on helping change the patients’ beliefs about the causes and threat value of chronic low back provide substantial pain relief? They developed a therapy they called pain reprocessing therapy (PRT) based on the understanding of chronic pain. As pain becomes chronic it becomes associated with activity and patients build avoidance of those activities. The brain connects chronic pain with activity even in the absence of any tissue damage and way past the time of injury.
Conclusion
Each patient received a telehealth session with a physician and 8 psychological treatment sessions—that instructed patients to think of their pain as “nondangerous brain activity rather than peripheral tissue injury…” This study showed that 66% of participants were pain-free or nearly pain-free with 4 weeks of PRT. People could have substantial pain relief with treatment focusing on changing fear- and avoidance-inducing beliefs in the absence of tissue damage.