Utilizing Pain Neuroscience with Aquatic Therapy to Address Low Back Pain

May 23, 2018 from 5:00-6:00pm EDT

Presented by:  Todd Lewarchick, PT, DPT, OCS, FAAOMPT, Outpatient Rehabilitation Manager, Cleveland Clinic

In this webinar, Todd Lewarchick, Outpatient Rehabilitation Manager at the Cleveland Clinic, will focus on pain neuroscience and how it can be used as a treatment strategy in tandem with aquatic therapy to address low back pain.

Todd will offer a baseline understanding of pain neuroscience education, including evidence of its use as a treatment strategy and how clinicians can determine which patients are appropriate candidates. He will analyze the complexity of pain and fear and the relation of cognition to the pain experience as well as the impact that language and communication can have on pain.

Todd will review the current best evidence in guiding clinicians treating patients with persistent pain with a focus on the low back. There will be a discussion on the literature to support unloading and how the properties of water can help get patients moving to counteract their pain and improve function. He will describe how video feedback can assist with pain by helping with somatosensory re-organization. Todd will also demonstrate how graded activity in the water can assist with low back pain and will share examples of aquatic exercises that can be used to that effect.

ATTENDEES WILL LEARN:

• How pain neuroscience can be used as a treatment strategy for low back pain
• The relation of cognition to pain and impact of language and communication on pain
• Effective use of aquatic therapy to assist with low back pain and improve function