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SEPTEMBER 2017
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3 Pain Awareness Month Reaches New Audiences 4 Give a Squat 4 Pain and Support the ACPA 8 Tool Kits for Pain Awareness Month
NATIONAL PAIN AWARENESS MONTH
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TA BLE OF CONTENTS
Features TM
3 Pain Awareness Month Reaches New Audiences
4 Give A Squat 4 Pain and Support the ACPA 6 Declaring September as Pain Awareness Month – Now an International Concern
8 Tool Kits for Pain Awareness Month
Departments 10 New Groups and Facilitators 11 Tributes 12 ACPA Supporters
The Chronicle is published by the American Chronic Pain Association. We welcome essays, poetry, articles, and book reviews written by people with chronic pain or their families. Please send inquiries to: The ACPA P.O. Box 850 Rocklin, CA 95677 (916) 652-8192 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Penney Cowan PRESIDENT, BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Donna Kalauokalani, MD, MPH PAST PRESIDENT, EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
Nicole Kelly MEDICAL EDITOR
Steven Feinberg, M.D. EDITOR
Alison Conte DESIGNER
Paulette Green
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CHRONICLE | SEPTEMBER 2017
Sharing our Message with the World
Pain Awareness Month Reaches New Audiences by Penney Cowan, Executive Director of ACPA
In 2001, the American Chronic Pain Association (ACPA) was seeking a new way to build consensus and raise awareness about the millions of people who are living with pain. We began two initiatives that year that we continue to build on 16 years later.
✽ We created Partners for Understanding Pain, a group of 80 organizations that promotes greater understanding of all the issues involved in living with pain.
✽ We declared September to be Pain Awareness Month.
✽ We distributed more than 150,000 pain awareness tool kits for nurses and pharmacists.
✽ We developed a tool kit for older adults who live with pain and those who care for them.
✽ In 2016, we released a tool kit for healthcare professionals. This year we are taking our message to an international audience. In May 2017, we
Over the next seven years, ACPA and Partners
introduced pain awareness at the World
for Understanding Pain worked to establish
Health Organization World Health Assembly,
September as Pain Awareness Month. We
in Geneva, Switzerland. We are also expanding
succeeded, with declarations and special
our tool kit for healthcare professionals to
events occurring in many states. We even
include international organizations. You can
coordinated a visit to Capitol Hill in 2005 in
read more about it in this issue of the Chronicle.
support of the Pain Care Act.
Reaching out through Social Media
For the complete history, you can visit the September is Pain Awareness Month section of our website.
For September 2017 Pain Awareness Month, we are excited to be introducing a new ACPA
Tool Kits to Promote Pain Awareness
awareness and fundraising campaign, Give a
Partners for Understanding Pain created tool kits
We hope the campaign will generate donations to
that would let individuals involved with pain easily
support our mission of helping people live more
communicate the issues to others, spread the
fully in spite of pain through support, education,
word and initiate activities. Partners has had a
and advocacy. Read more about it in this issue of
positive impact in a number of areas.
the Chronicle.
Squat 4 Pain.
CHRONICLE | SEPTEMBER 2017
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AND
SUPPORT THE ACPA ACPA has been the leading voice and advocate for people with pain since 1980. Now it is time to reach out in a new way. With over 100 million people living with some form of pain, it is important to bring our message to the public so they can understand the challenges these people face. And what better way to get attention on social media than with a “wall squat” challenge?
what it is like to live with severe pain day in and day out.
How long can you hold a wall squat? It isn’t easy! A wall squat is a position that is difficult to hold very long without feeling the pain.
A Social Media Challenge
When you attempt a wall squat you will feel the pain, just as millions of Americans who live with chronic pain do. It gives the average person a small taste of
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CHRONICLE | SEPTEMBER 2017
ACPA’s Give a Squat 4 Pain campaign will encourage people to share this message on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. We hope to raise awareness of chronic pain and entice fans to take the “squat” challenge.
To accept our challenge, they also donate $5 (or more) to the ACPA — helping us meet our mission. By sharing our involvement and compassion with friends across social media — in this fun, unusual way — we can all spread the word.
We will provide a Facebook frame for you to use on the ACPA Facebook page. Then add a post to your own page, to encourage others to try the challenge. You can also tweet about your activities on Twitter using the hashtag, #GiveASquat4Pain.
Find Some Friends and Give a Squat 4 Pain
The key message of Give a Squat 4 Pain is that chronic pain is an invisible epidemic that has a profound effect on people and society. Pain does not discriminate; it affects people of all ages and backgrounds.
So don’t just sit there while others live with chronic pain. Take part in the challenge in one of several ways:
✽ Try the wall squat to see how long you can hold the position
✽ Challenge friends, family, and coworkers to
This promotion will begin in September, during Pain Awareness Month. Watch for it on the ACPA website and our social media pages in Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube.
beat your record
✽ Form a larger squat team, and post creative photos of your team in action CHRONICLE | SEPTEMBER 2017
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Declaring September as Pain Awareness Month — Now an International Concern
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CHRONICLE | SEPTEMBER 2017
Pain management is a basic human right: we need your support to ensure pain care for all
P
ain is an integral part of almost all medical conditions. Its impact is both subjective – on quality of life and social stability – and objective – on economic growth and the cost of providing healthcare.1
Yet pain is often overlooked by policy makers, healthcare providers, payers, and the public at large. If we want to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for everyone at any age, we must work to see that pain management is part of every healthcare discussion. We must make pain visible.
Pain Across the World
You can join us in our efforts to raise awareness of a misunderstood but enormous healthcare problem, pain.
Our Objective is to Increase Understanding The goal of the campaign is to raise awareness among healthcare professionals, individuals and families who are struggling with pain management, the business community, legislators, and the public. We will use mass media, public forums, and other activities so that chronic pain may be:
Chronic pain, like most other chronic non-communicable diseases, is growing globally, with one in 10 adults diagnosed with chronic pain each year. In developing countries, 20 percent of the adult population lives with pain, according to the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP).
✽ More readily recognized ✽ Better understood without the traditional stigma attached ✽ Issued greater healthcare resources ✽ More effectively treated and managed ✽ Acknowledged as a serious public health issue
✽ In China, 36 percent of the population has chronic pain2. ✽ 68 percent of people in India have pain,
Goals for Executing our Plan
contributing to the leading cause of disability3. ✽ 83 percent of children and adults live with low back pain in Africa. ✽ A literature review from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) estimates that 10.5 percent of the population in Latin America has back pain. ✽ 66 percent of 4,839 respondents in a 15-Europeancounty survey reported having moderate pain; 34 percent had severe pain.4 ✽ In Japan, the prevalence of chronic pain is 17.5 percent, while in Thailand it is 19.9 percent.
The ACPA, IPMN, and IAPO will develop tool kits, tailored to major geographic regions, which will provide information to help us work collaboratively to meet our goals. These kits will help us communicate with healthcare professionals, consumer and professional organizations, journalists, community leaders, and public officials. These will be provided to all participating organizations. Participating organizations will be responsible for using the ideas in the kits — and other ideas they may develop independently — to have September declared as Pain Awareness Month in their countries.
Pain Awareness Campaign
1 Institute of Medicine Report: Relieving Pain in America: A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education, and Research
In 2001, the ACPA and other organizations began a pain awareness campaign in the United States – September Is Pain Awareness Month.
2 Prevalence and characteristics of chronic body pain in China: a national study, Springer Plus, 2016/10.1186/s40064 - 01602581 – y
In 2017, the ACPA, the International Pain Management Network (IPMN), and the International Alliance of Patient Organizations (IAPO) propose to extend this campaign internationally.
4 Survey of chronic pain in Europe: Prevalence, impact on daily life, and treatment, European Federation of Chapters of the IASP, 2005 International Pain Management Network
3 Prevalence of chronic pain, impact on daily life, and treatment practices in India, Pain Pract., 2014, Feb;14(2):E51 - 62.doi
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Tool Kits Make it Easy to September as Pain Aware
In early 2001, the American Chronic Pain Association established a pain awareness campaign. Th
a number of organizations across the country whose missions complement the ACPA’s under the Understanding Pain. A key element of the effort was to establish September as Pain Awareness Month.
Through its members, each of whom brought their own perspective to the dialogue, Partners fo
represented a comprehensive network of resources and knowledge about issues in pain manage
In 2004 and 2005, Partners developed tool kits for nurses and pharmacists to help promote Pain
at hospitals and health facilities among staff and patients. Since then, other kits have been creat for healthcare professionals and older adults. The tool kits provide information to work collaboratively with healthcare professionals, consumer and professional organizations, journalists, community leaders, and elected officials. The tool kit contains useful examples of letters, news releases, and official declarations for pain awareness. These can help you reach different audiences and provide key messages, with facts and resources for different conditions and population-specific pain issues.
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o Promote eness Month
his undertaking pulled together
e umbrella of Partners for
Together we can help ensure that those who live with pain have access to appropriate and effective pain therapies.
or Understanding Pain
ement.
n Awareness Month
ed
Tool Kit for Healthcare Professionals 2017 Nurses Tool Kit 2007 Pharmacists Tool Kit 2007 Proclamations Process Guide Tool Kit Tool Kit for Older Adults
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New Gr ups TM
Welcome to our new groups and facilitators.
Christy Tigner
Jason Schutz
Ottawa, KS
Macungie, PA
Wendy Rogers
Kathy Manderbach
Erie, PA
Richland, WA
Albert and Joan House Lansdale, PA
For contact information for any support group facilitator, please call 800-533-3231. 10
CHRONICLE | SEPTEMBER 2017
Tributes
In Memory of Marsha G. Benson, facilitator of the Santa Monica, CA, support group Given by Marsha G. Benson Trust and son Daniel
In Memory of Wayne A. Buehrer Remembered by the Englewood, Colorado ACPA support group for 17 years of membership and service to others in chronic pain Given by Alan Zanetell John Vlasman Marijiah Baldwin Michele Stofka Kathy Beck Diane Schick Timika Thomas Maggie Whittum
In Memory of Jarod M. Bennis Given by Daniel Raszkowski Merry Koscianski Ron and Karen Bennis Gary and Pat Marshall
In Honor of Lynn Wisser, who lives with central pain syndrome Given by Tyler Anderson
In Memory of Bernadette Constance May 20, 1976 – July 5, 2017 Given by Victoria P. Tate
Correction In the April 2017 issue of the ACPA Chronicle, there was an error in a photo caption of Tom Norris and his wife. Tom’s wife’s name is Marianne Muellerleile.
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Thank You! CHAMPION
AMBASSADOR
EDUCATOR
Collegium Pharmaceutical Lilly Shionogi, Inc BUILDER
Allergan Centrexion Daiichi Sanyo
Kaleo McNeil Pernix Pfizer
Purdue Sanofi Supernus
SUPPOR TER
Folsom Pain Management
The ACPA is a peer support organization: we help each other learn to live fully in spite of chronic pain. Your donations and purchase of materials keep the ACPA alive and reaching out to even more people with pain.
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Our Mission â?‹ To facilitate peer support and education for individuals with chronic pain and their families so that these individuals may live more fully in spite of their pain.
â?‹ To raise awareness among the healthcare community, policy makers, and the public at large about issues of living with chronic pain.
theacpa.org CHRONICLE | SEPTEMBER 2017
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