Mindfulness, Chronic Pain, and OT

It can feel like everyone is discussing the benefits of mindfulness.

Yet, with all this fanfare, we must ask: does the evidence justify incorporating mindfulness into occupational therapy?

The systematic review we will look at in this one hour course says, “YES!” (At least for specific chronic pain conditions.)

The authors provide a great overview of the problem of pain—and they also discuss various mindfulness-based interventions for chronic pain, including the research behind them.

After we review the article, it is our pleasure to welcome Patricia Motus, OTR/L, RYT-200 to join us on the OT Potential Podcast. Patricia uses yoga, meditation, grounding, and life & health coaching to help clients navigate life transitions. She and I will discuss this article, including some ways you can incorporate mindfulness into your traditional OT practice.

Additional Resources

• Dr. Shauna Shapiro video on The Power of Mindfulness: What You Practice Grows Stronger

• Free Online Intro Course on MBSR

• Sarah Good, OT who does mindfulness work

1. You will be able to identify simple ways to incorporate mindfulness into your traditional occupational therapy treatments.

2. You will be able to identify several types of mindfulness-based interventions, and note how they may complement occupational therapy delivery.

• Intro

• Breakdown and analysis of journal article

  • The problem of chronic pain

  • The menace of opioids

  • Alternative treatments for chronic pain

  • The authors’ overview of mindfulness-based interventions for chronic pain

  • What does this paper add to the body of literature on alternative chronic pain treatment?

  • What evidence did the authors include in their review?

  • What evidence did they find?

  • What did their discussion of the research entail?

  • What did the authors conclude?

  • Takeaways for OT practitioners

• Discussion on practical implications for OTs (with guest Patricia Motus)

  1. Can you tell us about how you found OT—and then how you found mindfulness?

  2. What was your initial impression of the article?

  3. Does your own experience back up what the article found (that mindfulness is an effective treatment option)?

  4. In your experience, how does mindfulness complement OT?

  5. What is one simple way someone who works in a traditional OT practice might incorporate mindfulness into a treatment session?

  6. When should an OT refer out to someone with more mindfulness training? What types of mindfulness professionals should OTs have in their networks?

  7. If OTs want to learn more about incorporating mindfulness into their treatments, where do you think they should begin?

  8. When it comes to our knowledge and utilization of mindfulness, where would you like to see OT in 5-10 years?

Primary

• Mindfulness-based interventions for chronic pain: Evidence and applications

Additional

• Are we missing opportunities? How occupational therapists would benefit from connecting mindfulness to occupational participation

• Mindfulness and human occupation: A scoping review

It is the policy of OT Potential to disclose any financial and non-financial interest the provider or instructor may have in a product or service mentioned during an activity. This is to ensure that the audience is made aware of any bias of the speaker.

OT Potential pays guest speakers an honorarium for their participation, either directly or to an institution of the speaker's choosing at their request. We invite guests whose expertise often comes from practices, programs, or building products in their field. Where a speaker has a financial interest in the subject of a course, we disclose it below so you can weigh it for yourself.

OT Potential's interest in this topic: We have no financial stake in this topic.

Speaker interests: Patricia Motus has a financial interest in her practice, Wholistic Transitions. She did not promote it during this course.