Treatment for chronic pain for adults in the seventh and eighth decades of life: a preliminary study of acceptance and commitment therapy (act)
Pain Medicine, 06/29/2012
McCracken LM et al. – This is the first study of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for chronic pain specifically looking at older adults, and preliminary results are promising.
Methods- The treatment consisted of 3 or 4 weeks of residential treatment delivered by a team of psychologists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, nurses, and physicians.
- It was designed to increase daily functioning not by decreasing pain, but by increasing psychological flexibility.
- This includes the ability to change or persist with behavior in a practical, accepting, open, aware, values–directed, and committed fashion.
- Participants showed significant improvements in physical disability, psychosocial disability, and depression at posttreatment and at a 3–month follow–up.
- They also showed significant increases in components of psychological flexibility.
- In secondary correlation analyses measures of psychological flexibility were significantly correlated with key outcome measures.
