The University of Queensland`s Professor Jenny Strong probably did not need an introduction to pain in the new textbook for therapists she has co-edited and co-authored.
Professor Strong already has close family experience of her subject.
In 1965, as a small child aged five, she watched her mother die with pain from cancer.
"I shut it all out at the time, but it probably explains why I`ve had such an abiding interest in the subject of pain. In a sense, this book is a tribute to her," she said.
Professor Strong, who is Deputy President of the University`s Academic Board, and the Professor of Occupational Therapy in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, is the senior editor and co-author of Pain: A Textbook for Therapists (Churchill Livingstone Press). It is a 461-page tome just released this month with contributors from Australia, Canada, UK, New Zealand and Sweden.
The book is designed to fill a gap in the curricula of schools specialising in Occupational Therapy and Physiotherapy. It has been eagerly sought by the health professions and has already been adopted by the University of Dalhousie at Halifax.
"Pain is one of the main reasons people consult health professionals, yet it`s an area in which health professionals are not always knowledgeable," she said.
"Knowledge is exploding in this field with input from patients, from whom health professionals can learn much.
"There has been a great need for a comprehensive textbook to assist physiotherapists and occupational therapists to become more informed about, and more sensitive and understanding towards people with pain, and more effective and evidence-based in their approach to treating and managing people with pain."
Professor Strong said the major international and interdisciplinary group involved in furthering an understanding of pain was the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP).
With two of her co-editors- Anita Unruh and David Baxter, Professor Strong was on an IASP sub-committee which developed an outline curriculum on pain for schools of occupational therapy and physical therapy in 1994. The fourth editor (Anthony Wright) was a consultant to the sub-committee`s deliberations.
Sadly, the author of the foreword, Professor Patrick Wall, who was the inaugural editor of the academic journal, Pain in 1975, himself died of cancer in August.
Professor Wall and Professor Ron Melzack in 1965 published The Gate Control Theory of Pain, which greatly improved understanding of the mechanisms of pain.
"Until this theory was published, conventional wisdom was that the pain signal went straight from nocireceptors in damaged tissues along nerve fibres to the spinal cord up to the brain, and was registered as pain," Professor Strong said.
"However, the Gate Control Theory opened up thinking about the pain. It suggested that the modulation could occur in the spinal cord, and that descending influences could modulate the pain signal.
"Look at footballers who receive a terrible whack when they are running to score a try, yet they may not feel the pain until after they reach the goal line."
The theory has been greatly modified since 1965, but it still remains a landmark in terms of advancing understanding of pain.
It opened the field to psychology, with the understanding that pain is not simply a mechanical response to the presence of tissue damage. Pain is both a sensory and affective experience. The theory also opened the field to the disciplines of physiotherapy and occupational therapy.
Professor Strong`s research over many years has focused on the clinical area of chronic pain. She has been an active researcher in both the assessment and management of chronic pain conditions.
In 1996 she authored the first pain management book for occupational therapists called Chronic Pain; an occupational therapist`s perspective
The sense of learning about pain as a small child has been repeated with her six-year-old son Matthew, who has experienced strong growing pains.
Professor Strong asked Matthew to paint his pain.
His poignant and emotive painting has now been incorporated into the book`s cover design.
Media contact: Professor Jenny Strong, telephone 07 3365 1320 or Jan
King at UQ Communications 0413 601 248.
