How Mood Affects Pain: Improve Injury Recovery with Emotion Regulation

This session will review the relationship between mood and chronic pain.  The neural circuitry of chronic pain, anxiety, and depression helps explain the comorbid relationship between these conditions.  Surgical outcomes in people are improved when depression and anxiety are addressed pre-operatively. Pharmacologic and behavioral strategies will be presented that can help reduce stress and anxiety in our patients to help improve pain management, healing, and recovery.

• •Understand the relationship between anxiety/depression and pain
• •Understand central characteristics of stress, fear and anxiety
• •Learn pharmacologic interventions for managing co-morbid pain and anxiety
• •Learn non-pharmacologic strategies for reducing stress, anxiety and pain