Chronic pain, complexity and a suggested role for the osteopathic profession

Chronic pain is common and has a substantial impact on individuals’ lives and the society in which they live. However, current strategies for managing chronic pain have low to moderate efficacy. We present a complexity informed model of managing chronic pain.

The authors propose that the biological, psychological and social factors influencing the experience of chronic pain can be framed as elements of a complex system (when ‘system’ is understood as a mental model of a set of relationships in the world) and discuss the advantages of this approach … ABSTRACT