Pain requires processing – How the experience of pain is influenced by Basic Body Awareness Therapy in patients with long-term pain

Abstract

a b s t r a c tBackground and purpose: Long-term pain is common and entails large costs to society. One physiotherapy treatment with documented positive effects for patients with long-term pain is Basic Body Awareness therapy (BBAT). However, studies are lacking about patients' experience of BBAT's influence on their pain. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate how patients experience BBAT's influence on their long-term pain. Methods: For this qualitative interview study, participants were selected from two supervised BBAT groups. To qualify for the study, participants had to meet two inclusion criteria: having pain for at least 6 months, and attending BBAT for at least 6 months. Six females between the ages of 25 and 61 years were included. Pain duration ranged from 9 to 20 years, and duration of practicing BBAT ranged from 8 to 120 months. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and qualitative content analysis was performed. Results: The analysis revealed four main categories of BBAT experience: increases motivation, requires processing, increases control over pain and changes attitude to oneself, body and pain. Discussion: Patients with long-term pain experienced BBAT as being helpful in processing their pain because they were forced to face the pain instead of trying to ignore it. Participants experienced a decrease in pain through development of an increased sense of control as well as a changed attitude to themselves, their bodies and their pain. It is important for physiotherapists to understand that pain can increase during BBAT and to support the patients in this process during the therapy.

The Effect of Physiotherapy Group Intervention in Reducing Pain Disorders and Mental Health Symptoms among Syrian Refugees: A Randomized Controlled Trial

“…This had an impact on attendance at the PAAI sessions, which was relatively low, reducing the power in our analyses and eventually introducing a potential selection bias. A low attendance rate, even lower than ours, is common in this type of study [38,42]. To overcome these limitations, future studies should try to tailor interventions to refugees' lives even more and should ensure longer intervention periods.…”

“…However, only 12% reported high levels of mental health problems. Previous RCT studies using physiotherapy among refugees have mainly focused on the effect it has on mental health symptoms like PTSD, major depression, anxiety, and stress [23,[40][41][42][43]. These studies showed little effect of the treatment on these mental disorders.…”

Cross-Cultural Adaptation, Reliability, and Validity of the Greek Version of the Fremantle Shoulder Awareness Questionnaire (FreSHAQ-GR) in Patients with Chronic Shoulder Pain

“…Impaired body awareness forms part of the sensorimotor disturbance cascade present in persistent musculoskeletal pain conditions [ 13 ]. As sensorimotor disturbance associated with chronic pain may prolong chronicity [ 12 ], PROs with valid psychometric properties are required for effective monitoring of manifestations [ 19 ] and treatment approaches [ 48 ] related to body awareness.…”

Personality systems interactions theory: an integrative framework complementing the study of the motivational and volitional dynamics underlying adjustment to chronic pain

“…As a more therapeutic approach, body awareness therapies (BAT, e.g., Feldenkrais therapy) focus on promoting a non-judgemental and “mindful” way of perceiving the body as a whole and integrating it with other aspects of the self (including emotions) ( 154 ). This holistic approach has shown positive effects on pain experience, quality of movement and self-efficacy in psychiatric patients ( 155 – 158 ) as well as patients with specific and non-specific musculoskeletal pain including fibromyalgia ( 145 – 147 , 149 , 154 , 159 – 161 ).…”