Pain never sleeps: why and how to integrate sleep management in the treatment for patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain

Description

Course Location:
Online via Zoom

Course Dates:
Sunday April 6th 
11:00am - 3:00pm EST
Saturday April 12th 
11:00am - 2:00pm EST

Course Cost (+HST):

$240 (CAMPT Member)
$275 (OD Member)
$300 (Non-Member)

Registration Deadline: Thursday, April 3rd, 2025

A full refund, less a $25 admin fee will be issued if a cancellation occurs more than 1 month before the start date.
No refund will be issued within a month of the course start date.

Course Description:
Lifestyle factors such as sleep problems, physical (in)activity, sedentary behaviour, stress, unhealthy diet, and smoking are associated with chronic musculoskeletal pain severity and sustainment1-5. Yet current treatment options often do not, or only partly address the many lifestyle factors associated with chronic musculoskeletal pain1,5-7. Therefore, this course focusses on one key lifestyle factor that is often overlooked and rarely addressed thoroughly: sleep. Among many people with chronic musculoskeletal pain, including patients with osteoarthritis, low back pain, neck pain, and shoulder pain, insomnia is highly prevalent, closely related to the mechanism of increased nociceptive sensitivity8, and often does not respond effectively to drug treatments9.

This course applies the current understanding of insomnia to musculoskeletal clinical practice, including assessment and conservative treatment of insomnia in people with chronic musculoskeletal pain10. Cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I, typically including sleep education, sleep restriction measures, stimulus control instructions, sleep hygiene, and cognitive therapy11) can be efficacious in improvements in perceived sleep quality and pain interference with daily functioning in people with chronic musculoskeletal pain. With additional training, musculosleletal physiotherapist-led cognitive-behavioral interventions are efficacious for improving sleep quality in people with spinal pain, allowing their implementation within the field.

The treatment of sleep disorders as highly prevalent and debilitating comorbidity of many musculoskeletal pain disorders is an exciting, innovative area for the musculoskeletal physiotherapy profession. This new development holds great potential for improving care for the many patients with persistent musculoskeletal pain who have sleep problems.   

Course Objectives:
At the completion of this course, learners will be able to:

  1. Identify patients with musculoskeletal pain who require sleep treatment;
  2. Perform relevant sleep assessments in patients with musculoskeletal pain who require sleep treatment;
  3. Improve their clinical reasoning by integrating sleep problems into their clinical reasoning process for patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain;
  4. Integrate sleep treatment into more traditional musculoskeletal physiotherapy approaches such as education and exercise therapy, in order to design individually-tailored multimodal treatment approaches for people having chronic musculoskeletal pain.

Instructor Bio:
Liesbet De Baets holds the position of a Associate Professor at KU Leuven in Belgium, where she is Researcher in the Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation Research Group. She possesses a Master's degree in Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Sciences and has earned a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences.

Liesbet specializes in research that delves into cognitive and behavioral factors linked to pain, movement, and sleep in individuals suffering from musculoskeletal pain. She directs two clinical trials with a focus on investigating how sleep problems impact various chronic musculoskeletal conditions, including osteoarthritis and chronic spinal pain. Her research also aims to assess the efficacy of treatments such as cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia and exercise therapy in improving sleep quality, reducing pain levels, and enhancing physical functionality.

Any questions please email: Colleen Dorion at cdorion@physiotherapy.ca