News

Dalhousie researchers lead Aboriginal stream of national Chronic Pain Network

Dalhousie University is taking part in a new large Canadian network pioneering developments in patient-oriented health care for chronic pain research and care.

Nursing’s Margot Latimer is involved with the Chronic Pain Network, a national collaboration project funded for $12.5 million under Canada’s Strategy for Pain Oriented Research (SPOR) which will see patients work with researchers, healthcare professionals, educators and government policy advisors to increase care access for chronic pain sufferers and speed up the translation of the most recent research to the reality of care.

More specifically, Dr. Latimer and her team at the Aboriginal Children’s Hurt and Healing Initiative (ACHH, pronounced “ache”) including co-lead Sharon Rudderham (Eskasoni First Nation Health Director), Kara Paul (Dalhousie Aboriginal Health Sciences Initiative), Katherine Harman (Physiotherapy), Jill Chorney (Anaesthesia/Psychology), Allen Finley (Medicine) and Mary McNally (Dentistry) are leading the Aboriginal stream of the Chronic Pain Network.

Aboriginal children have higher reported rates of dental pain, earrache, headaches, injury and musculoskeletal and chest pain; yet may be less likely to be treated than their non-Aboriginal peers.  Findings suggest that that these children are stoic and don’t express their pain in the same way.  Standard, western-based tools like numeric or face scales don’t appear to tell the whole story.  The ACHH works with communities and clinicians to bridge the gap in understanding of Aboriginal children’s pain and design tools for better diagnosis and treatment.

“ACHH wants to better understand how aboriginal children express pain so we can develop new understanding and mechanisms to assess and treat it using a Two-Eyed seeing – best of Indigenous and Western knowledge - perspective” says Dr. Latimer.

As part of the Chronic Pain Network, ACHH plans to extend their scope beyond the Maritimes to First Nations, Metis and Inuit communities across Canada.

Learn more:

• ACHH Initiative
• McMaster University – Chronic Pain Network Announcement
• Understanding how Aboriginal Children Express Pain – Dal News