Assessing and Managing Pain in Patients with Limited Communication Abilities

Dr. Lydon is a Chartered Behavioural Psychologist with the Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI). She is Chair of the PSI’s Division of Behavioural Psychology and a committee member of the Special Interest Group in Paediatric Psychology (SIGPeP). She has worked for twenty years as a Behaviour Therapist and Senior Behaviour Specialist with children and adults in Intellectual and Developmental Disability Services, throughout Ireland. Since 2013, Helena has been a lecturer in Psychology at University of Galway where she continues to work and research. Dr. Lydon is the Director of the Applied Behaviour Research Clinic at University of Galway. In recent years Helena’s research has focused on behavioural interventions to support autistic children and their families to address challenges with sleeping, feeding and pain. Helena has been involved in a number of projects which have combined the use of technology and behavioural interventions to enhance the accessibility of treatments to families who’s needs may otherwise be unmet and to improve treatment outcomes and quality of life.

Ruth Defrin is a Full Professor at the Dept. of Physical Therapy, Faculty of Medicine, and Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel-Aviv University (TAU). Ruth Defrin completed her Bachelor degree in Physical Therapy, MSc and PhD in Neurophysiology at TAU and postdoc at the University of Toronto. She is the co-founder and chair of the TAU and affiliated hospitals Pain Research Forum. She is also a member of the steering committee of the Pain in Intellectual and Developmental Disability SIG (PIDDSIG). Her main research interests include: the interaction of pain and stress, mechanisms of neuropathic pain, and pain perception among individuals with intellectual disability. Ruth Defrin has published over 110 research papers and several book chapters on these topics.

David Moore is a Reader in Pain Psychology at Liverpool John Moores University and a co-founder of the Somatosensory and Affective Neuroscience Research group. David’s research interests include both pain mechanisms and pain management in autistic population. David started working in this field 10 years ago and has is a founder member of the PIDD SIG leadership committee. His recent work has been seeking to examine the pain experiences and expressions of autistic people and examining how to better provide pain education and management for autistic patients. He is interested in the experiences of pain in neurodivergent people and potential links with hypermobility and is a pain adviser to the SEDS connective charity.

A/Prof Adrienne Harvey is a physiotherapist by background and Principal Research Fellow in Neurodisability and Rehabilitation at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia. Adrienne leads an Australian program of research into chronic pain in children with cerebral palsy. Adrienne recently received funding to co-create chronic pain education for children with cerebral palsy aged 5-12 years.

Dr. Yenisel Cruz-Almeida is a tenured Professor at the University of Florida College of Dentistry, with appointments in Neuroscience and Epidemiology. Her research investigates why pain varies so widely across individuals as they age, combining quantitative sensory testing, neuroimaging, epigenetics, and biopsychosocial phenotyping to distinguish pain vulnerability from resilience in older adults. She directs the PAIN Research Laboratory and serves as Associate Director of the UF Pain Research and Intervention Center of Excellence (PRICE). Supported by multiple NIH awards, she is Treasurer of the United States Association for the Study of Pain and Associate Editor at The Journal of Pain.

Keela A. Herr, PhD, RN, AGSF, FGSA, FUSASP, FAAN is Professor and Kelting Professor in Nursing Emerita in the College of Nursing at the University of Iowa. Over the past 35+ years, Dr. Herr has been engaged in a program of research, scholarly, and professional activities focused on the problem of pain in older adults, with emphases in assessment strategies, improving practices through translation research and end of life care. Her extensive program of funded research contributed to establishing best practices for pain assessment in older adults, with her current NIA-funded project helping family caregivers for persons with dementia in recognition of pain and communication with providers. Her research and scholarship on pain in older persons has been disseminated widely in national and international presentations, professional peer-reviewed literature and in development of lay literature and resources on this topic.
Dr. Herr has been a long-standing advocate for improving quality of pain care in older adults and served on or led expert panels in development of clinical practice guidelines for persistent pain management by the American Geriatrics Society, for position statement and clinical guidance resources for assessment of pain in persons unable to self-report by the American Society for Pain Management Nursing and in determining quality measures for palliative care through the AAHPM/HPNA Measuring What Matters Initiative. She has been engaged at the national level in consulting roles regarding regulations that impact quality of pain care in the US, including FDA Expert Panel on Analgesic Management of Pain in Older Adults, NIA/NIH Expert Panel on Pharmacological Management of Chronic Pain in Older Adults, Technical Advisory Panels for CMS and Quality Innovation Network-Quality Improvement Organization emphasizing quality measure development and medication safety, and the Expert Working Group for NCQA on pain assessment in older adults. She has led a national effort to provide best practice tools and resources to improve pain care for older adults (www.GeriatricPain.org).
Dr. Herr has received numerous awards for her contributions to geriatrics and pain care for older adults with most recent the Midwest Nursing Research Society Lifetime Achievement Award and the Gerontological Society of America’s Doris Schwartz Gerontological Research Award. She is a Robert Woods Johnson Executive Nurse Fellow alumni and Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing, the American Geriatric Society, the Gerontological Society of America and the United States Association for the Study of Pain.

Stefan Lautenbacher is Professor Emeritus of Physiological Psychology at the University of Bamberg, Germany, and currently serves as a Senior Consultant at the University of Augsburg. His research focuses on the psychophysiology of pain, with particular emphasis on age-related changes in pain perception, endogenous pain modulation, sex and gender and pain, facial expression of pain and the interaction between psychological and physiological mechanisms of pain. He has published extensively in the fields of experimental pain research and behavioral medicine and has made significant contributions to advancing the understanding of pain across the lifespan.

Miriam Kunz is Professor and Department head of Medical Psychology at the University of Augsburg, Germany. Her research focuses on pain assessment and pain communication, with a particular emphasis on nonverbal expressions of pain, pain in ageing and in vulnerable populations, and the psychological mechanisms underlying pain perception and interpersonal pain communication. Her work combines experimental, clinical, and translational approaches to improve the assessment and management of pain across diverse patient groups. She has published extensively in the fields of experimental pain research and behavioral medicine.