The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 20% of US adults has chronic pain, and as many as 8% of US adults has high-impact chronic pain, that is pain that interferes with life and work activities. Pain can be disabling, in and of itself, and it can occur alongside other disabilities such as traumatic brain injury, musculoskeletal disorders, or depression.

In previous articles, we’ve talked about the impact of pain on participation, ways to stay active when you live with chronic pain (even if it hurts to move), and the importance of self-care when living with chronic conditions. Today, we’ll look at some of the latest research on pain and pain management happening in the NIDILRR grantee community and explore new acquisitions in the NARIC collection on the topic.

Current NIDILRR Grantee Research on Pain

Current projects funded by NIDILRR are looking at pain and its impact in several life areas. These projects include:

• Improving Assessment of Opioid Use Disorder in People with Disabilities Related to Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain focuses on helping health care providers accurately assess opioid use disorder (OUD) in people with disabilities who are taking opioids for long-term pain management of musculoskeletal pain such as arthritis. This project is working to develop screening tools and an assessment and referral toolkit to for these providers understand and accurately diagnose OUD and help their patients get treatment when and if they need it.
• Characterization and Treatment of Chronic Pain after Moderate to Severe Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) researches and evaluates the treatment needs of people living with chronic pain after a TBI to advance a personalized medical approach for treatment. The University of Washington TBI Model System Center is also conducting a study on collaborative care versus usual care to reduce the interference of pain after TBI
• The North Texas Burn Rehabilitation Model System Center studies the impact of burn injury on social participation, including the impact of symptoms such as pain and itch following burn injury. This center’s work also includes a project to evaluate Vitamin D for burn-related symptoms including pain.
• Several Model Spinal Cord Injury System Centers conduct individual and collaborative projects on pain and SCI, including complementary and integrative healthcare, lifestyle changes, and pressure injury relief.
• Explore more current and completed pain-related projects in the NIDILRR Program Database

New Products and Publications on Pain from the Grantee Community

• Take Charge of Burn Pain is an interactive program to teach people with burn injuries and their care providers about how pain impacts recovery and tools and skills to manage their burn-related pain.
• TBI and Chronic Pain Infocomics from the University of Washington TBI Model System cover life with chronic pain, co-occurring injury and pain after TBI, managing spasticity, and pain and anxiety. Each comic includes activity logs to help identify activities or times that may be associated with more pain.
• TBI and Headaches (PDF), also from the TBI Infocomics series, covers different types of headaches that can happen after a TBI, how to talk to your doctor about these headaches, and how to use a headache diary to identify what might bring on a headache. Also available in Spanish.
• How to Manage Disability-Related Pain as You Age, part of the Aging with Disability Factsheet series, covers types of pain, lifestyle changes, behavior and coping skills, and other topics to help people with lifelong disabilities manage their pain as they get older.
• Explore more recent consumer and research publications from the NIDILRR grantee community abstracted in our REHABDATA database.

The REHABDATA database contains thousands of abstracts for research articles on pain, pain management, pain as a secondary condition, and other topics. Here are a couple of search strategies you can explore:

• Pain research published in the last year.
• Pain and opioid use.
• Pain and employment.
• Pain and brain injury.
• Pain and coping.

Try your own search at https://www.naric.com/?q=en/SearchRehabdata or contact an information specialist to conduct a targeted search that meets your research needs.