Managing chronic pain in people with learning disabilities: a case study.

Accessible summary •Many people with learning disabilities have pain that never goes away. This is called chronic pain. •Lots of work has been done on chronic pain for people without learning disabilities, but not much is known about how to help people who have learning disabilities and chronic pain. •This paper looked at what helped people without learning disabilities to live with chronic pain and adapted it to be used for people with learning disabilities and chronic pain. •This paper found that it helped one woman and so it describes what was done so other people can use the same ideas in the future. Chronic pain is a prevalent, under-diagnosed problem in the learning disability population. This is in part due to communication problems, unrecognized pain behaviours and the effects of medication. As a consequence, chronic pain often goes untreated and causes ongoing distress. This paper initially describes the main research that has been carried out into learning disabilities and chronic pain management and then goes on to detail the case of a 32-year-old woman with mild–moderate learning disabilities who has been suffering from chronic pain for 16 months. A multi-modal and multidisciplinary assessment was carried out to explore the physical and psychological underpinnings of her pain and its impact on her quality of life. A cognitive-behavioural pain management intervention was developed by adapting a manual for non-learning disabled adults to meet the physical, social and cognitive needs of the client. Sessions were carried out once a week for 4 months and improvements were reported in the level of pain intensity, levels of anxiety and depression and the range of activities she took part in. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]