Managing Pain Before It Manages You by Margaret A. Caudill, Herbert Benson (Foreword by)

Synopsis

Now in a revised and expanded edition, this popular workbook teaches coping skills proven to decrease the discomfort, depression, and anxiety associated with chronic pain. The information and techniques presented have been used by tens of thousands of people over nearly two decades, and have been demonstrated to empower pain sufferers and decrease pain-related disability and distress. The approach is also valuable for people coping with other chronic illness-related problems, such as fatigue. Through hands-on exercises and homework assignments, readers are helped to understand the pain process, learn about medications and their effects, and recognize factors that exacerbate or relieve symptoms. The revised edition features updated coverage of commonly used pain medications and specific pain disorders, current nutritional recommendations, and a new appendix on complementary alternative medicine. Also included are a wealth of helpful new ideas on coping with pain flare-ups, staying active, accomplishing personal goals, and more.

Doody Review Services

Reviewer:Deb Lewis, EdD, RN(Slippery Rock University )
Description:Presented in a workbook format for patients who are living with chronic pain, this book is intended to help patients reduce their pain and develop coping skills to improve their lives. First published in 1995, this is the third edition.
Purpose:The purpose is to help those with chronic pain reduce their pain through mind-body techniques, with an overall goal of restoring healthful living. Pain is a significant national health problem and it is the most common reason individuals seek medical care, with millions of medical visits annually; costing the American public more than $100 billion each year in healthcare, compensation and litigation.
Audience:Although the book is clearly written, it may be too lengthy for persons with low literacy reading skills. However, chapter summaries are helpful and provide a nice synthesis of the information.
Features:The book includes real life techniques and tools that may help patients dealing with chronic pain. It provides an evidence-based approach to describing chronic pain and introducing mind-body strategies to support those seeking to improve their health. Chapters focus on the power of the mind, nutrition, medication, and effective communication. The author includes downloadable audio files and removable worksheet pages that encourage readers to apply the strategies to their own life.
Assessment:This comprehensive overview of chronic pain provides useful strategies. The author includes citations that support the effectiveness of the strategies described in the book. Each subsequent edition hasincorporated updated evidence to support the content.

Biography

Margaret A. Caudill, MD, PhD, is a board-certified internist and a Diplomate of Pain Medicine. She is Adjunct Associate Professor of Anesthesiology at Dartmouth Medical School and has served as Co-Director of the Arnold Pain Center, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts, and as Co-Director of the Department of Pain Medicine, Dartmouth Hitchcock, Manchester, New Hampshire. Dr. Caudill has long been interested in empowering people with chronic illness through medical treatments that bring mind and body together. She has researched and written extensively on mind/body medicine and lectured internationally on the importance of the biopsychosocial treatment model of pain.