Review of the Canadian Pain Task Force Report
Background
Pain, according to the International Association for the Study of Pain, is “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage.”
As covered in our Science of Pain article, pain serves a vital purpose for living creatures with a nervous system, including humans. The unpleasant feelings of pain convince us to move away from situations that are causing damage to our bodies. Without this built-in alarm system, we would have to try hard to avoid biting our own tongues, we might not notice our hand is on a burning stove, and we wouldn’t go to the doctor to mend broken bones. As unpleasant as pain is, it is extremely important to our survival.
Pain is a defining factor for inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, functional dyspepsia, gastroesophageal reflux disease, diverticular disease, various digestive cancers, and countless other digestive conditions.
Canadian Pain Task Force
Chronic pain affects one in four Canadians 15 years of age and older, that’s 7.63 million people.1 It is a significant public health issue impacting individuals, families, the healthcare system, and society. Those living with chronic pain have limited access to the services they require and often face stigma and undue suffering because of their condition. These challenges intersect with other health challenges related to the social determinants of health and other chronic conditions, such as mental illness and substance use disorder. The COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated these challenges further and we must not forget Canadians living with pain as the healthcare system works to re-adjust and recover from this global challenge.
In October 2020, the Canadian Pain Task Force (CPTF) released a report identifying the need to understand chronic pain as a disease and a growing public health issue. It found significant issues with accessibility and affordability of treatments, lack of awareness and specialized education and training for pain management, research for treatments, better monitoring of individuals living with pain, and the need for a specialized approach to care for Indigenous Peoples. However, the underlying barrier to these relieving these concerns is stigma and misperceptions about living with pain.
Health Canada, the federal department responsible for helping the people of Canada maintain and improve their health, established the CPTF in March 2019 with wide and varied representation, with a goal to understand and provide recommendations to government decision-makers on the best approaches to care for individuals living with chronic pain and to improve pain prevention.
CPTF found that the economic burden of chronic pain is as much as $60 billion each year. This includes the cost of healthcare resources, treatments, impact on the quality of life, associated disability, and lost productivity. Yet, there is a significant lack of funds available for pain research, specifically the long-term impacts and needs of those living with multiple health conditions and chronic pain.
We encourage you to read the full report, noted in the reference section. In the meantime, there are groups working to advance pain education, awareness, and support, such as Pain BC (www.painbc.ca) in English and Association Québécoise de la douleur chronique (www.douleurchronique.org) in French. The federal government also compiled a list of resources for individuals living with chronic pain during COVID-19 that you might find useful.