Linda Hiemstra on LinkedIn: Untangling the Ties Between Chronic Pain and Mental Health - Neuroscience… (2024)

Tessa Hille look!

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Occupational Therapy often feels like applied common sense! But Occupational Therapists are experts at analysing situations, activities and tasks and providing practical perspectives to problem solving.

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Thanks for posting this #JolettaBelton - this is such an amazing opportunity. To all my clinician colleagues - if you are working with a person with a health condition who might be interested, please share with them.

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Looking forward to represent #PAINCOLLECTIVE at this event tomorrow. I am going to be discussing a modern understanding and approach to lower back pain. Back pain remains the single most disabling condition, particularly in the working population, but early intervention and effective management can change the outcome!

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I love the concept of plasticity - the ability of body systems to change their sensitivity in response to what is going on inside and outside. This is such hopeful news for people struggling with chronic conditions - our systems can learn, adapt, reset. Find a healthcare provider who can help you with the right tips, tools and tricks to get your system working well again. Our bodies truly are fearfully and wonderfully made.

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Such exciting progress - hopefully this will result in improved workplace wellness for many people.

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Adequate pain management is often described as a human right, but for me it is about more than that - it is about humanity...for healthcare providers to recognise that the person sitting in front of them is no different from their mother, brother, sister, friend, father - is no different to themselves. It is about treating others as you would like to be treated. It is about doing the best you can with what you have.This was highlighted for me by an interaction with a patient last week - I will call him *Paul. He consulted one of our Doctors and he saw me. We didn't provide magic treatment, or take his pain away in the blink of an eye. What we did was a lot less profound: We listened. We resolved some logistical challenges. We helped him come up with a plan for some practical problems in his life. We presented some treatment options. We helped him take back a little bit of control in a scary situation. I don't know whether we will manage to relieve *Paul's pain - I do know that we gave him a glimmer of hope, and maybe, just maybe gave him back a little bit of humanity. This Mandela month - let us remember to be kind, to meet others where they are at, to just be human.

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Joletta Belton - I have heard you tell your story, but this, for some reason hit me today: Telling your story - all of it - is about what matters to YOU as the person living it. Being a receiver of such a story, as a clinician, but also just as a fellow human, is such a gift and a privilege. Thank you for the reminder to listen deeply - not just to the words, but also the silences in between.

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Very few people know that Occupational Therapists are also part of the pain management team.

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