Explain Pain

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Course Description

In a world experiencing an epidemic of chronic pain and increasing evidence of the failure of synthetic drugs, simple but extremely powerful educational tools can effectively target the natural pain treatment systems within us all.

Knowledge is power. In the new series of Explain Pain courses delivered by NOI instructor Bart van Buchem MSc, contemporary pain sciences are made accessible and understandable for all.

We know more about pain in the last twenty years than in the thousand years before and it’s all providing answers to “why do I hurt the way I do” and “what can I do about it”. The knowledge is applicable to young and old, from back pain to hemiplegia and general aching to the complexities of phantom pain and complex regional pain syndrome.

Explain Pain works to reduce catastrophising and negative pain beliefs and when combined with active treatment, reduces pain and enhances return to work and play. Explain Pain has no side effects, is available around the clock, and you can share the knowledge and strategies with others.

Don’t miss this opportunity. NOI Explain Pain courses are fun, intellectually stimulating, based on evidence, always challenging, and integrate the Explain Pain ecosystem of Explain Pain, The Explain Pain Handbook: Protectometer, and Explain Pain Supercharged. You will come away with the most impressive therapeutic tool set ever!

Course Structure

Session 1: 'Setting the tone' - The pain problem in practice, paradigm, health literacy, models and introduction of 'The Protectometer'

Session 2: Metaphors and Pain – Language as Therapy

Session 3: How the Nervous System Seems to Work – Hardware, Software and Wetware

Session 4: Peripheral Matters - Nociception, Inflammation and Peripheral Sensitization

Session 5: "Nervous Stories" - Neuropathic pain, patterns and the patient's story

Session 6: Central Sensitization - Not a disease, but a description of a manifestation

Session 7: Other Outputs - Hormones and the Immune System

Session 8: Explain Pain – Evidence and discussion and terms

Session 9: 'The Protectometer' – Practical

Course Objectives

By the end of this course participants will have:

1. Reconceptualised pain and stress based on neuroimmunology, modern pain sciences and bioplasticity of homeostatic systems
2. Constructed a conceptual change framework to deliver individual and group educational therapy
3. Gained an understanding of the growing evidence for Explain Pain and recognise opportunities to integrate Explain Pain with other biopsychosocial evidence based strategies.
4. Gathered a collection of therapeutic narratives using metaphor, literal story and linked multimedia, and the skills to construct patient centred education interventions in real time
5. Developed the skills to use the Protectometer to identify immediately applicable and educationally informed multimodal treatment strategies
6. Built the confidence to plan and deliver treatment for all patients with persistent pain and stress, and educate other stakeholders

Prerequisites

A strength of the Explain Pain course is that participants come from many professions (accreditation points awarded from KRF-NL, Keurmerk, PQK and ADAP), so come with an open mind. Pre-reading the Explain Pain Second Edition book would also be beneficial.

Other related reading: Moseley GL & Butler DS (2015) Fifteen years of Explaining Pain: the past, the present and future.J Pain 16, 803-13.

Who can participate?

Health professionals working with patients or clients in acute and chronic pain and stress states.

Accreditation Points

This course is accredited for: 15 points (Stichting Keurmerk Fysiotherapie), 24 points (Pro-Q-Kine), and 23 points (Kwaliteitshuis Fysiotherapie Vakinhoudelijk algemeen).

Meet your Teacher

This course is led by NOI instructor Bart van Buchem MSc. Bart teaches physiotherapy both at undergraduate and postgraduate level with a focus on pain topics. As an NOI teacher, he teaches Explain Pain courses across the Netherlands. Bart is responsible for founding the NOI Faculty in the Netherlands and together with Mark Langerhorst he translated the 'Explain Pain’ text into Dutch.

Recommended Literature

This course is based heavily on the book, "Explain Pain Second Edition." A dutch version is also available: "Begrijp de Pijn."

Other related reading: Moseley GL & Butler DS (2015) Fifteen years of Explaining Pain: the past, the present and future, J Pain 16, 803-13.

Online vs In-Person Learning Options

Would you rather participate in this course in person? No problem!

We offer in-person Explain Pain courses in several locations in both The Netherlands and Belgium. In The Netherlands, we offer courses in Amsterdam and Groningen; in Belgium, we are working together with our long term partner, Studio Pili, to offer you a personal touch and relaxed atmosphere.

IN PERSON: To see all dates for the in-person course, please check the course page with detailed information about available dates.

ONLINE: To see all dates for the online course, please check the course page with detailed information about available dates.

What is the difference between online and in-person Explain Pain courses?

The course will be live and delivered via Zoom, the class sizes are kept small to maximise interaction and time for questions. The online courses offers the same high quality you are used to but from the comfort of your home. The teaching material is offered to you online.

Language of Instruction

The Explain Pain courses - both online and in person - are taught in Dutch. 🇳🇱

Who is behind the Explain Pain Courses?

Neuro Orthopaedic Institute (NOI) Australasia has been in operation for 20 years, with highly qualified instructors working on all continents with multidisciplinary audiences. Organising over 100 seminars a year throughout the world, NOI’s faculty members are active in many conferences, university programmes and other postgraduate education sessions. The company reinvests in education and clinically based research and Noigroup Publications has grown from the demand for resources to support this emerging research.

The essence of NOI

Our vision is to seed ‘healthy notions of self through neuroscience knowledge’ worldwide. There are currently five critical conceptual change issues which underpin this:

1. Injury or disease does not mean that you feel pain.
2. The nervous system moves and stretches as we move.
3. Pain, stress and performance are outputs of the brain.
4. Knowledge and movement are the greatest pain and stress liberators.
5. Nervous system plasticity gives new hope and technique.

The biopsychosocial approach, or the merging of the biology of human pain, stress and performance with the psychological and social environment, is the basis of the NOI educational philosophy. It is essentially ‘scientific holism’. Derived mostly from British science, the approach is best typified by Wall and Melzack’s (2005) ‘Textbook of Pain’.

NOI also espouses strong clinical reasoning strategies, again arising from British critical thinking and later, Australian manual therapy.

Assessment and management of the physical aspects of the nervous system and brain sciences with a focus on neuroplasticity - particularly how the brain represents our body - is an important focus.

Overall, the nervous system is a remarkable, mobile, complex, plastic and changeable organ, and this impacts on both acute and chronic injuries and disease. The NOI education system covers acute and chronic musculoskeletal, central and peripheral, and neuropathic pain states.

On its release the Explain Pain concept was considered ground-breaking and it is still proving to be a phenomenal force in the move to better understand, manage and prevent chronic pain. Explain Pain resources aim to give clinicians and people in pain the power to challenge pain and to consider new models for viewing what happens during pain. Once they have learnt about the processes involved they can follow a scientific route to recovery.