Making the journey from patient to person takes time. The isolation and fear that can overwhelm a person with chronic pain grows over time. And the return to a fuller, more rewarding life also takes time. It’s a journey with many phases.

The ACPA describes these phases as Ten [...]]]> Ten Steps From Patient to Person…from the ACPA

Making the journey from patient to person takes time. The isolation and fear that can overwhelm a person with chronic pain grows over time. And the return to a fuller, more rewarding life also takes time. It’s a journey with many phases.

The ACPA describes these phases as Ten Steps.

STEP 1: Accept the Pain

Learn all you can about your physical condition. Understand that there may be no current cure and accept that you will need to deal with the fact of pain in your life.

STEP 2: Get Involved

Take an active role in your own recovery. Follow your doctor’s advice and ask what you can do to move from a passive role into one of partnership in your own health care.

STEP 3: Learn to Set Priorities

Look beyond your pain to the things that are important in your life. List the things that you would like to do. Setting priorities can help you find a starting point to lead you back into a more active life.

STEP 4: Set Realistic Goals

We all walk before we run. Set goals that are within your power to accomplish or break a larger goal down into manageable steps. And take time to enjoy your successes.

STEP 5: Know Your Basic Rights

We all have basic rights. Among these are the right to be treated with respect, to say no without guilt, to do less than humanly possible, to make mistakes, and to not need to justify your decisions, with words or pain.

STEP 6: Recognize Emotions

Our bodies and minds are one. Emotions directly affect physical well being. By acknowledging and dealing with your feelings, you can reduce stress and decrease the pain you feel.

STEP 7: Learn to Relax

Pain increases in times of stress. Relaxation exercises are one way of reclaiming control of your body. Deep breathing, visualization, and other relaxation techniques can help you to better manage the pain you live with.

STEP 8: Exercise

Most people with chronic pain fear exercise. But unused muscles feel more pain than toned flexible ones. With your doctor, identify a modest exercise program that you can do safely. As you build strength, your pain can decrease. You’ll feel better about yourself, too.

STEP 9: See the Total Picture

As you learn to set priorities, reach goals, assert your basic rights, deal with your feelings, relax, and regain control of your body, you will see that pain does not need to be the center of your life. You can choose to focus on your abilities, not your disabilities. You will grow stronger in your belief that you can live a normal life in spite of chronic pain.

STEP 10: Reach Out

It is estimated that one person in three suffers with some form of chronic pain. Once you have begun to find ways to manage your chronic pain problem, reach out and share what you know. Living with chronic pain is an ongoing learning experience. We all support and learn from each other.

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt this calm before!”

“The pain is gone! No pain! I forgot what it feels like to not have pain…”

“I sleep like a baby. I used to never sleep.”

“I feel like I am ‘in the zone’ all day now.’

At the same time all of our acts, thoughts, and feelings are handled by the brain in its own code.

And the brain reads its own code by a kind of pattern recognition.

If we now allow the brain to witness [...]]]> At the conscious level we observe our own behavior and can act to modify our own behavior.

At the same time all of our acts, thoughts, and feelings are handled by the brain in its own code.

And the brain reads its own code by a kind of pattern recognition.

If we now allow the brain to witness its own behavior, it simply applies its pattern matching skills, realizes what the game is about, and is then capable of altering its own behavior.

In neurofeedback, we allow the brain to track its own behavior in our digital mirror. At the same time, we reward the brain if it happens to change in a favorable direction, in a sophisticated game of “warmer/colder.”

The brain is also a voracious learning engine, so it incorporates the new information and that becomes new learned behavior, or new functional capability.

Explanation courtesy of Chief Scientist at EEG Institute, Sigfried Othmer

“The clinical data proffered for neurofeedback are certainly impressive, but spectacular results are observed occasionally in any clinical context. Conventionally we write them off to the placebo effect. How do we know that neurofeedback isn’t just a fancy placebo?”

The response:

In any discussion of this type the placebo is treated as if it were an [...]]]> The challenge:

“The clinical data proffered for neurofeedback are certainly impressive, but spectacular results are observed occasionally in any clinical context. Conventionally we write them off to the placebo effect. How do we know that neurofeedback isn’t just a fancy placebo?”

The response:

In any discussion of this type the placebo is treated as if it were an independent causal agent. But it is merely an observed effect; the cause remains obscure. Whatever the cause, however, it is an illustration of the human capacity for self-regulation and self-repair. In health care currently, the placebo makes its appearance randomly. In neurofeedback, we harness the human capacity for enhancing self-regulation systematically. Both rest on the assumption of brain plasticity. Since systematic research trumps random observation, it is neurofeedback that can explain the placebo effect, not the other way around.

Neurofeedback distinguishes itself from the random placebo in the following respects: 1) Success is achieved much more predictably and systematically  than would be expected for placebo; 2) neurofeedback exhibits a progressive and cumulative learning curve, in contrast to placebo; 3) neurofeedback typically shows no extinction effects, demonstrating that learning has occurred; 4) neurofeedback effects are specifically protocol-dependent, in a manner consistent with functional neuroanatomy; 5) neurofeedback does not merely achieve restoration of function but also enhancement of function that could never be ascribed to a placebo.

This includes, among many possible examples, the return of vision in a blinded individual; the establishment of color vision in an individual who never had it before; establishment of stereoscopic audition in someone who never previously had that experience; substantial IQ increases beyond norms; the elimination of insulin requirement in a Type II diabetic; the normalization of thyroid function in a hypothyroid condition; extraordinary skills in sports that had not manifested before; the sudden surfacing of musical and other artistic abilities.

Neurofeedback therapy functions much like any other rehabilitation technique. In sum, once acquaintance is made with neurofeedback, the placebo hypothesis must be seen as a category error, the relic of a prior age in which brain plasticity was not an accepted concept.

Explanation courtesy of Chief Scientist at EEG Institute, Sigfried Othmer