Description:

The Department of Neuroscience Welcomes Dr. Lorimer Moseley. 

Lorimer is Foundation Chair in Physiotherapy and Professor of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of South Australia, and Senior Principal Research Fellow at Neuroscience Research Australia. He is also Senior Principal Research Fellow at NeuRA and an NHMRC Principal Research Fellow.

In this talk I will present the historical context, scientific underpinning, evidence and future of the Fit for Purpose approach to chronic pain. The discovery of central sensitisation in the 1980’s flipped pain care on its head. A push to consider chronic pain a disease in its own right - an immutable consequence of altered response profiles in the spinal cord - was accompanied by a shift from ‘treatment'  to ‘management’. Cognitive and behavioural therapies for mood disorders were repurposed and people with chronic pain were told to aim at a fulfilling life WITH pain. Our collective failure in keeping those with lived experience informed of developments left patients confused and often angry - ‘I can see why the other people in my program are here, but I have REAL pain- this is NOT all in my head’. A new kind of pain education emerged, seeking to impart a modern scientific understanding of how pain works, the dynamic nature of sensitivity and the multifactorial nature of pain. Rapid progress in our understanding of the neurophysiological disruptions associated with chronic pain led our group to develop treatments aimed at correcting those disruptions. The Fit for Purpose model emerged as an integration of progress in education and sensory and motor retraining interventions. Clinical trial and real world data are supportive and highlight the importance for recovery of first reconceptualising the problem of chronic pain. Our current focus is on making these promising treatments better.