Mangiarelli Rehabilitation Physical Therapy Blog
November 2023 Newsletter
Check out our November 2023 newsletter, highlighting managing Achilles tendinopathy with physical therapy, managing lymphedema after breast cancer, 3 posture training exercises to improve postural alignment, and understanding the science of pain.
Addressing Chronic Pain with Pain Neuroscience Education and Physical Therapy
Pain neuroscience describes pain as an output of the brain in which the nervous system functions as an alarm for the brain about pain in the body and the brain interprets these signals to decide whether pain would be beneficial for healing, causing the nerves to increase their sensitivity in the injured area. In a patient with chronic pain, the nervous system remains hypervigilant, signaling to the brain that an area of the body is injured and painful, even when the tissue is no longer damaged. Combining physical therapy exercise and pain neuroscience education (PNE) helps chronic pain patients desensitize the sensitive chronic pain area through graded movement and understand the mechanism of pain in their body.