Interprofessional Active Learning for Chronic Pain: Transforming Student Learning From Recall to Application.

Chronic pain (CP) affects over 50 million Americans daily and represents a unique challenge for healthcare professionals due to its complexity. Across all health professions, only a small percentage of the curriculum is devoted to treating patients with CP. Unfortunately, much of the content is delivered passively via lecture without giving students an opportunity to practice the communication skills to effectively treat patients in the clinic.

Improving adherence to PAP therapy: A brief PAP coaching intervention for health care providers.

Objectives: To evaluate a training program for non-specialist health care providers in a brief coaching intervention to improve positive airway pressure (PAP) usage in Veterans with sleep apnea.

Methods: We conducted a national webinar training designed for non-specialist providers to implement a brief telephone coaching intervention to improve PAP adherence. The curriculum was crafted by experts in sleep medicine and behavioral sleep medicine based on principles of PAP desensitization.

Patient Motivation to Reduce or Discontinue Opioids for Chronic Pain: Self-efficacy, Barriers, and Readiness to Change.

Objectives: This study aimed to assess levels and predictors of self-efficacy and motivation to change opioid use among a community sample of patients using opioids for chronic pain, as well as patient-reported barriers to pursuing opioid discontinuation.

Methods: Participants with a variety of chronic pain conditions, recruited from ResearchMatch.org , completed a battery of electronic, self-report questionnaires assessing demographic and medical characteristics, pain treatment history, and levels of readiness, self-efficacy, and other attitudes toward reducing or discontinuing opioid use.

Association of Cerebral Hemodynamics and Anemia on Processing Speed in Adults with Sickle Cell Disease.

Background And Purpose: Compared to healthy controls, adult patients with Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) are anemic, and therefore have higher cardiac output and Cerebral Blood Flow (CBF) to maintain brain oxygenation. They also demonstrate comparatively more cognitive deficits due to either overt strokes or silent cerebral ischemia. However, there are few correlative studies between CBF and cognitive deficits, specifically processing speed in SCD.