Health Insurance Claims News
Chronic pain patients 'should have better access to cognitive behavioural therapy'
Critical illness claims news3rd March 2010
People with chronic pain conditions should have better access to cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), an expert has said.Grahame Pope, associate professor and head of physiotherapy education at the University of Nottingham, argued that improved services would allow pain sufferers to have their pain symptoms alleviated sooner.
His comments come after a study at the University of Warwick revealed that people in a CBT intervention group reported more than 200 per cent improvement in their chronic lower-back pain over a year's treatment compared with those who were not in the group.
Mr Pope said the research added to the evidence that CBT should be offered by more health centres, a view that may be of interest to people making related incapacity insurance claims.
"If this is a robust study that provides clear evidence of the efficacy of CBT over alternative approaches, then commissioners of services ought to take note and it ought to reinforce the view that CBT should be more widely available," he added.
The specialist said therapists and other healthcare professionals who work in CBT programmes have been convinced that CBT provides an effective way for patients to come to terms with managing their pain.
Pointing to the importance of giving patients control over their own treatment, Mr Pope added: "It's not sufficient to simply apply treatment to the patient; the patient needs to be at the centre and involved - and a central tenet of that is increasing or improving the understanding [in] the patient of their own condition."
According to a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine last year, the prevalence of chronic, impairing lower-back pain rose significantly from 3.9 per cent in 1992 to 10.2 per cent in 2006.
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