College of Medicine

One in five adults in the United States have to live with chronic pain. Dr. Heather Flynn, Chair of the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine at FSU, has recently been awarded with a nearly $100,000 grant for project research on understanding and improving physical and psychological functioning of patients with chronic pain seeking orthopedic care. The project is a collaboration between the FSU College of Medicine, College of Nursing, and the Tallahassee Orthopedic Clinic, and is designed with the intention to provide information on a new way to improve pain management and function in large communities of orthopedic practice.

This multidisciplinary pilot will uniquely bring together orthopedic clinicians working on pain prevention and treatment with FSU researchers specializing in translational and health services. Opioids that are currently used to target and relieve pain are notoriously poor at managing chronic pain and improving functioning, and so a new approach in the form of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) will be introduced to target the biopsychosocial aspects. Most patients do not have access to CBT as healthcare settings that typically treat pain patients do not incorporate this multidisciplinary approach, but by planning around a clinical setting, it is likely that the chances of translation-to-practice and overall functioning will be drastically improved with this method.