Episode 61 | Dr. Laura Simons: Healing Child Pain Begins in the Brain

Pediatric chronic pain is a significant problem with conservative estimates that somewhere between 20% to 35% of children and adolescents are affected by it worldwide. Pain experience in children hospitals is known to be common but is under-recognized, often under-treated, with more than 10% of children who are hospitalized showing features of chronic pain. Although the majority of children that report chronic pain will not be permanently disabled by it, pediatric chronic pain patients often require intensive psychological as well as physiological interventions. The total cost as our society in the United States is somewhere in the upwards of $20 billion, I'm sure globally that's much more.

Here to speak to us today is Dr. Laura Simons who is an expert and working really at the intersection of child psychology and chronic pain. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Management at Stanford University School of Medicine. In addition to an active program of research, she works in the clinic evaluating and treating children and adolescents who present with chronic pain. She has developed an exposure-based intervention for youth that have chronic pain and also integrates neuroimaging into her program of research to gain a better understanding of the ultimate psychological processes that can occur in children with chronic pain.

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