NEWS
Scans help patients ease pain with their brain
Now that scanning technologies can show you how the brain processes pain—you may be able to control how it feels, says an article published recently in The New York Times' Health Journal.
The use of scanning technologies to teach patients how to control their pain response has had positive results in clinical trials. Of course the use of high-tech brain scans are not the first mind-body approach ever used to deal with pain.
For years, people have used meditation, hypnosis, tai chi and many other therapies successfully to deal with chronic pain. However,
"we are only now starting to understand the brain basis of how they work, and how they work differently from each other," says Sean Mackey, chief of the division of pain management at Stanford.
He and his colleagues were just awarded a $9 million grant to study mind-based therapies for chronic low back pain from the government's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM).
About one-third of Americans struggle with chronic pain. Abuse of pain medication is rampant.
To read the complete article, click here.
For more on the subject of meditation and pain control, read The Healing Power of Mindfulness, and One Moment at a Time, as well as our ongoing news coverage of health studies in this area, including Help control pain—with your brain, and Mind over Pain.
11/15/11