SCI Care: What Really Matters
SCI Care: What Really Matters
Robert Buren on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy on the management of Neuropathic Pain
In this bonus episode, Kristine Hendry, CEO of The Spinal Research Institute, interviews Robert Buren, a researcher studying at the University of British Columbia, Canada and SRI grant awardee, on his research highlighting the effectiveness of cognitive behavioural therapy in managing neuropathic pain and attending benefits of ISCoS 2023.
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The SCI Care: What Really Matters podcast aims to provide valuable insights and the most up-to-date information for those providing care to people with spinal cord injury (SCI) worldwide. The vision of the International Spinal Cord Society (ISCoS) is to "facilitate healthy and inclusive lives for people with spinal cord injury or dysfunction globally".
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Welcome to our bonus episode of SCI Care. What really matters the Edinburgh Conversations. I am Dr Ali Jumous, the President of the International Spine Court Society. You are about to hear a selection of interviews recorded live in Edinburgh during the course of the 60 seconds ESCO scientific meeting. Each bonus track will have discussions with speakers, delegates, partners, ESCO's committee chairs and teams attending the ESCO's 2023. Join us to find out what the hot topics of the day are within SCI Care. We hope you enjoy listening.
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm Christine Hingery. I'm the CEO of the Spinal Research Institute in Australia and I'm here with Robert Pyrrhan from Canada. Would you like to introduce yourself, robert?
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks for having me here. My name is Robert Pyrrhan. I live in Canada. I study at the University of British Columbia in Okanagan with my supervisor, kathy Martin-Guinness, and the SCI Action Lab. I'm here this week at ESCO presenting some of my research on mindfulness and neuropathic pain and how that relates to spinal cord injury. It's a great opportunity to be here to meet people from all over the world, find out what they're doing and share with others.
Speaker 2:Fantastic, so you're one of our travel grant recipients for 2023. Can you tell us a bit about what the opportunity of the travel grant provides you?
Speaker 3:The grant's been a big help, for sure. I'm coming from all the way from Canada. All the costs involved with travelling across the ocean and staying in a world-class city like this they're not insignificant and so the grant helps offset those costs and gives me this opportunity, which is really invaluable. I'm a first year or second year PhD, so I'm at the point now where I've sort of set my feet and got some stability and I can start really networking and pulling in some of the expertise that exists around the world at this conference. So it's a really big opportunity that I know is going to impact my research tomorrow but also into the future, as these relationships develop and people introduce me to one another, and it's developed.
Speaker 2:It's a really good opportunity to network and meet people at these conferences. It really does provide a wonderful networking opportunity. Can you talk a bit about the post of the or presenting and your research?
Speaker 3:Sure, yes, a lot of it relates to my lived experience. So I've been in a wheelchair now for 15 years. One of my biggest challenges is not the inability to walk, it's neuropathic pain and it really puts a cloud over your entire life. I've tried everything that the medical system will try to promote or offer you and nothing really works. But in the last few years I discovered mindfulness meditation from hangar leaf specific really flavor of CBT, you might say and with so much success from that. That's really guided my research.
Speaker 3:So the post around presenting today is really scoping your view and I'm really excited by it because what I did was I looked at any type of cause of neuropathic pain so maybe it's cancer, diabetes or stroke, spinal cord injury and I looked at any kind of flavor of cognitive behavioral therapy. Maybe it was more traditional CBT, maybe it was ACT or mindfulness or DBT. And it's fascinating because what the literature shows is that it doesn't matter how the neuropathic pain came about or the type of CBT you're doing. Almost 90% of the studies have found that it can significantly impact neuropathic pain and help reduce it. I think those findings are fascinating because if we can get to something so simple with such few side effects, negative side effects, such a low cost to deliver and potentially even deliver remotely, the impact we can have on this population, for SCI as well as the general population, is really significant, and that's where my research I'm on one agreeance I'm at the.
Speaker 2:European stages there, and that's where I'm targeting. It makes a huge difference to quality of life, which is just so important. It's remarkable.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. And why is it not something which newly injured individuals get exposed to? Yeah okay, why not? What's the possibility of risk? There is no, so we need to learn about these things that exist and fuel all that research that's been done, and package it up and get it institutionalized in Canada as well as across the world.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. Well, I look forward to catching up with you, maybe in 12 months or 24 months time, and seeing where that's headed. So it's uh, it's exciting work, and I wish you luck with it all.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much. Yeah, and the fact too, we live on the opposite side of the world, but this grant we brought us together. Yeah, and so the things that I learned and do in Canada, I'm excited to share with you, and maybe there's an individual there that can can run with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Thanks for that. Thank you very much. Yeah, thanks, robin, thank you.
Speaker 1:We hope you have enjoyed listening to our bonus collection of Edinburgh Conversation from ESCOS 2023. As always, you can listen to these episodes and all episodes from the podcast provider of your choice. If you have any questions or suggestions, we'd love to hear from you. Email them to admin at escosorguk. Escos also invites you to the 63rd ESCOS scientific. Anyone meeting from the 22nd to the 25th of September 2024 to save the date and more details will follow on the 2024 themes submitting an abstract and early birth registration. Thank you for listening.