Course Outline: This workshop will deepen clinicians’ understanding of pain neuroscience in order to clarify more complex patient presentations and facilitate refinement of clinical assessments, and application of more appropriate and effective interventions.

Aims:

1. Improve participant’s knowledge of pain neurophysiology relevant for physiotherapists including: nociception and inflammation, pain modulation and neuro-endocrine-immune system responses

2. Using interactive tasks and clinical scenarios, explore how these physiological processes relate to patient presentations and influence clinical decision making (assessment and treatment)

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this workshop participants will:

1. Understand the neurophysiological processes, and clinical features of nociception, central sensitization and inhibition

2. Be able to perform physical assessments for pain sensitization and descending pain modulation

3. Understand the evidence for investigating psychological contributions to pain and how these factors impact on pain sensitization and descending pain modulation

4. Be able to identify psychological contributions to pain within clinical case studies, and be aware of strategies to address these factors

5. Understand interactions between neural, endocrine and immune system with respect to pain, and the evidence for multidimensional profiles in patient populations

6. Be able to interpret models of pain (specifically Inputs/Outputs and Allostasis models) that consider multiple dimensions, explain clinical findings to a patient within the context of these models, and plan treatments accordingly.