Healthy Notions of Pain for a Physically Active Lifestyle

Overview

In this online course we aim to explore how we personally understand pain and how that influences our engagement in the physical activities of our lives.  Specifically, what are healthy notions about pain, and what are common misconceptions and pitfalls that can lead us astray.  

This course is brought to you by the Orthopaedic Division of the Canadian Physiotherapy Association (CPA).

Objectives

In particular, this talk will focus on how our thoughts about pain influence how we navigate an active lifestyle.  A fundamental premise of this talk is that our beliefs and understandings about pain influence how we move.  

Through reflections on how we individually understand pain, we can reinforce healthy beliefs that help us optimally navigate leading physically active lives.  

Speaker Bio: Benjamin Boyd   

Ben works as a Physical Therapist at Stanford ValleyCare in Livermore, California where he specializes in persistent pain conditions, working with both individual clients and group classes.  He has worked as an outpatient Physical Therapist in multiple practice settings within the San Francisco Bay Area, seeing patients with a variety of neuromusculoskeletal complaints.  He received certification as an Orthopaedic Clinical Specialist through the American Physical Therapy Association in 2008.

In addition, Ben was an Associate Professor at Samuel Merritt University in Oakland, California for 12 years, where he taught in their entry-level Physical Therapy Program.   He continues to work as an Adjunct Associate Professor for this program, teaching on a part-time basis.  Ben has been teaching courses on peripheral nervous system anatomy, biomechanics, clinical evaluation, and intervention since 2004 and he joined the NOI US teaching faculty in 2013.

Ben originally graduated from the joint program at the University of California, San Francisco and San Francisco State University (UCSF/SFSU) with a Masters of Science in Physical Therapy in 2002, returning in 2008 to earn his Doctor of Physical Therapy Science degree.

Ben has been involved in research examining neuropathic pain conditions, including the mechanosensitivity of the nervous system in people with Diabetes Mellitus and in women post breast cancer treatment.