Looking for a little more information on what exactly is going to be discussed in each plenary session?
This year's annual meeting will open with the lecture on IASP's Global Year on Integrative Pain Care, with Dr Michelle Harris diving into Integrative Pain Management, a person-centred pain care model focussing on restoring function, health and wellness. She will discuss how an integrated approach to pain management might have benefits for not only the patient but the broader hospital systems. The session will continue with the first of Professor Theodore Price's, University of Texas discussions, starting with understanding more about gene expression profiles of human nociceptors at spinal levels and how the knowledge from rodents, primates and human research can help us to identify the most promising targets for chronic pain.
The second plenary session will see Associate Professor Melanie Noel from the University of Calgary deliver the Sunderland lecture and take us on a journey of remembering "Pain of Childhood". We will then have an exciting panel discussion on how pain is portrayed in the media, from the lens of leading medical journalist Liam Mannix, innovative digital approaches in pain research by Dr Edel O'Hagan from The University of Sydney and social media guru Professor Giandomenico Lanetti from the University College London on his experiences of pain media challenges.
A/Professor Noel will launch Day 2 with a deep discussion about the intergenerational problem of trauma and chronic pain. A/Professor Noel will present new emerging data that provides compelling evidence that early adverse childhood experiences of parents influence the development and maintenance of chronic pain in adolescents. Then Dr Josh Pate from the University of Technology Sydney will continue the conversation when he poses the question, what if kids learnt about pain at school? Can pain education learnt during the later years of primary school change how adults perceive and manage pain?
Tuesday afternoon will see Professor Price talk about how his research program has identified drug receptors for pain and what the future might hold regarding pain management.
The session will conclude with our recipient of the 2022 Rising Star award, Dr Aidan Cashin, an NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow at Neuroscience Research Australia. Dr Cashin will share how his research has advanced knowledge in the mechanisms of pain interventions, how this evidence is helping develop new and effective interventions which can be translated into clinical practice.
The final day will bring together two plenary sessions around research evidence, sleep, musculoskeletal pain and surgery. It will start with the Bonica lecture from Professor Denise Harrison from University of Melbourne, questioning how much evidence is needed before a topic is sufficiently evaluated. Professor Harrison's talk will explore the issue of evidence, equipoise and ethics in research, using the example of sugar in reducing various indicators of pain during painful procedures in newborns. Next, Professor Richelle Mysachiuk from Monash University, will discuss her research examining the relationship between sleep and pain.
The final day will conclude with Dr JP Caneiro presenting a framework on how Cognitive Functional Therapy can be implemented in clinical practice to promote safe learning and quality of life in people with musculoskeletal pain. The topic of musculoskeletal pain will continue with author and renowned academic orthopaedic surgeon Professor Ian Harris sharing his thoughts and research on the quality of evidence for comparators in surgical procedures. Then, Sarah Wallwork from the University of South Australia will deliver the last talk of the day on how harnessing children's picture books to transform conversations about pain.