Novel Rehabilitation Approaches for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome

Overview

Complex Regional Pain Syndrome is one of the most disabling pain conditions you'll encounter in practice, and it's rarely straightforward to treat. Interdisciplinary rehabilitation is the recommended cornerstone of CRPS management, but current approaches vary widely, often show limited effectiveness, and don't always have a clear mechanism behind them. If you've felt uncertain about what to actually do once a CRPS diagnosis is confirmed, you're not alone.

In this course, Marc Aureli Piqué Batalla walks you through three contemporary, biopsychosocial rehabilitation frameworks: Cognitive Functional Therapy (CFT), the Fit-for-Purpose model, and Cognitive Multisensory Rehabilitation (CMR). None of these have been formally validated in CRPS populations yet, but each has shown promising results in related conditions like chronic low back pain and neuropathic pain following spinal cord injury. You'll learn what each framework offers, how they differ in addressing pain mechanisms, behaviour, and body awareness, and how to start applying them in your own CRPS caseload.

This course builds on Marc's existing course, Myth-busting in Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. Where that course focuses on understanding CRPS diagnosis and dispelling common misconceptions, this webinar moves into treatment: what you can actually apply in the clinic.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

1. Identify at least three key clinical challenges associated with rehabilitation in individuals with CRPS
2. Describe the core principles of Cognitive Functional Therapy (CFT), the Fit-for-Purpose model, and Cognitive Multisensory Rehabilitation (CMR)
3. Differentiate how each approach addresses pain mechanisms, behaviour, and body awareness in clinical practice
4. Apply at least two practical strategies from these frameworks to support rehabilitation planning in CRPS
5. Integrate biopsychosocial and person-centred approaches into clinical reasoning to enhance patient engagement, function, and self-management

Who This Is For

Physiotherapists, occupational therapists, and other clinicians treating patients with CRPS or complex chronic pain presentations, including those working in interdisciplinary pain teams.

Why This Course Matters

Inconsistent rehabilitation approaches for CRPS don't just affect outcomes, they affect clinician confidence. When the evidence base is thin and care pathways vary, it's hard to know whether you're doing right by your patient.

This course gives you a grounded look at three frameworks gaining traction in pain rehabilitation more broadly, with an honest acknowledgment of where the evidence currently stands for CRPS specifically, so you can make informed decisions in the clinic rather than defaulting to guesswork.