This course is available as a standalone CE course or as an elective for our new Advanced Practice Certification.

Social determinants of health (SDOH) have shown to have a major impact on people’s health, well-being and quality of life. Physical therapy as a profession has acknowledged this and now educational content and sessions aim to teach therapist about SDOH as well as strategies to positively impact these SDOH. What about pain specifically? Pain is an individualized, unique human experience. This experience is what brings someone to physical therapy seeking care. What social determinants impact pain specifically? What can be done for it? Do current physical therapy-led interventions lean itself to issues with safety, transportation, education, income, discrimination, violence, literacy and more?

Sure, a combination of education, exercise and strategies to calm the nervous system is current best-evidence for pain management, but how do we deliver it when the playing field is not even? This session will delve into various complexities about pain including social support, employment, gender roles, culture and ethnicity, nature versus nurture, socioeconomic factors and more. Apart from recognizing these factors and how they impact a pain experience, this session will take current best-evidence strategies for pain management by physical therapy and showcase strategies to implement these in the face of social determinants of health, or pain.

Course Outcomes