Mindfulness Training for Physical Therapists

Providing regular care for patients and families can take an emotional toll on healthcare providers, including physical therapists and others who care for people with chronic health conditions.1 Workplace stress and personal issues can create challenges for practitioners who intend to give high-quality compassionate care to their patients, and the connections between compassion fatigue and […]

Embracing the ACT Model for Pain: A Guide for Professionals

Pain neuroscience and evolutionary psychology tell us that if a person has pain they will most naturally want to avoid it or stop it. Historically, the treatment of pain leveraged the idea of sufficient pain control and depended on a direct relationship between an identifiable physical injury and a patient’s report of symptoms. The amount […]

A Lack of Diversity in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans

Traditional diets are patterns of nutrition and eating inspired by the rich culture and culinary histories of cuisines from around the globe. Emerging research affirms that many of the most well-cherished traditional diets have something to teach us about health and nutrition. While research still debates the evidence of one eating pattern versus another, recommendations are moving […]

Do Nutritional Factors Play a Role in Central Sensitization and Chronic Pain?

Acute pain has long been understood as beneficial throughout evolution as it enables us to both identify and prevent encounters with harmful stimuli. However, once pain progresses to a chronic state it can cause a variety of issues for the individual and society as a whole. Up to 30% of the Western population is estimated […]

Physical Therapists’ Perceptions of Learning and Implementing Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to Treat Chronic Pain: A Pilot Study on the Integrative Pain Science Institute Experience

Chronic pain presents a physical and psychological burden for millions of Americans, and is a global health pandemic. This burden has been worsened by the widespread emphasis placed on a biomedical approach that largely neglects to address the psychosocial components and processes of chronic pain. This omission has led to poorly managed pain, the chronification […]

3 Ways Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) Can Prevent Burnout in Physical Therapists Who Treat Pain

Did you know that up to 41% of healthcare workers experience symptoms of burnout? (1) If you have experience working in health care, this may not be hard to believe. It can be challenging work due to productivity standards, documentation requirements, and student loan debt. Burnout has been defined as “exhaustion resulting from excessive demands […]