| Pain Management & Treatment |
Early aggressive treatment of neuropathic pain – medications. Alternative therapies for SCI pain, including marijuana, massage, and meditation. Acupuncture for neuropathic pain. Participation in physical activities twice a week for 1–2 hours (reported to alleviate pain – multi-faceted approach).
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| Measurement Tools |
Validate assessment tools for the SCI population. Determine which tools are optimal in SCI. Assess the impact of the measurement tool administrator on the results and report the reliability between different administrators (e.g. nurse, research assistant, medical doctor). Determine the sensitivity to treatment and reliability of the application of a given measurement tool or scale.
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| Health Services Policy & Advocacy |
Identify access issues such as system-related barriers, availability of drugs and procedures, barriers associated with providers, consumer-identified needs, and consumer/professional biases. Identify caretaker burden associated with a lack of support systems and the current provision of social services to families. Perform SCI pain and QoL needs assessments from the consumers’ point of view.
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| Knowledge Transfer |
Partner with provincial and federal funding agencies to “piggy-back” on other initiatives, paying particular attention to the unique needs of geographical regions and their knowledge transfer priorities. A knowledge broker is needed to spearhead this initiative. If the broker is a clinician, they will need support to organize their caseload so they have adequate time to devote to this project. This role would require strong project management/organizational skills. The initiative would involve the exchange of both information and resources. Partner with a SCI advocacy group to disseminate information to SCI consumers regarding accessible services for proper pain management. Rehabilitation centres could be used to pilot a project that would raise the Ambassador Strategy. Team communication and team-building strategies could be implemented. A project grant could be obtained to link and connect healthcare professionals using media such as electronic transfer, audio, video, etc. to share documents among healthcare professionals.
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| Mechanisms of Pain |
Validate a core set of measures of pain, including measures of neuropathic pain, and clinically relevant outcome measures. Determine individual differences in function at the molecular, cellular, genetic, psychophysical, and psychosocial level with respect to: a) each individual's clinical pain characteristics, and b) responders vs. non-responders to specific pain management strategies. Compare measures of neural function in humans with specific pain symptoms to findings in relevant animal models. Evaluate the influence of cognitive and affective stressors on biophysical measures of pain.
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