The aim of the Veteran and Family Well-Being series is to provide education on the evolution of pain management and current best practices in evidence-based interdisciplinary care. Targeting a broad audience of Veterans, case managers, researchers, and health care professionals. The reoccurring theme throughout is the importance of prioritizing the overall quality of life of a Veteran and their families using a holistic and multidisciplinary approach to help guide their chronic pain management programs.
In this session Adria Frannson, a practitioner at the Michael G. DeGroote Pain Clinic in Hamilton, Ontario, shared insights from their pain program about the physiology of how pain impacts well-being. She was followed by Dr. Joy MacDermid, a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Chair in Gender, Work, and Health, provided education on sex and gender, as well as introduce her project on identifying differences in chronic pain treatment needs and responses based on sex and gender in Canadian Veterans.
The Veterans Affairs Canada Life After Service Studies (LASS) program of research was designed to enhance the understanding of transition from military to civilian life and ultimately improve the health of Veterans in Canada. The LASS 2016 survey found that 40.8 per cent of Veterans suffered from chronic pain. In this session, Dr. Jason Busse shared his analysis of the data collected.
Veterans Affairs Canada funds 10 independent Operation Stress Injury (OSI) clinics. Saint Anne’s Hospital in Quebec is unique to Canada for having an interdisciplinary pain management centre and OSI clinic under the same roof and management team. With the overlap in conditions that Veterans face between chronic pain and mental health, this model allows health care providers to better engage with required specialists as part of providing care for Veterans. In this session, Josie Pierre, Manager of the pain and OSI clinic at Saint Anne’s Hospital, and her team shared their experiences in treating Veterans under this model of care.
We would like to thank all the presenters and their respective organizations for agreeing to participate in our second iteration of the Veteran and Family Well-Being Series. Adapting to the world around us as it temporarily shifts to more virtual platforms is critical to staying connected with our supporters. Being able to share some of these educational resources and insights from some of the leading minds on how chronic pain affects Veterans and their families reinforces for us the benefit of the Chronic Pain Centre of Excellence.
