IASP Member News

Dr. Ronald Melzack Wins Grawemeyer Award

Honorary Member Ronald Melzack, psychology professor emeritus at McGill University in Montreal, has won the 2010 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Psychology. Five Grawemeyer Awards totaling $1 million are presented annually for outstanding works in music composition, ideas improving world order, psychology, education and religion.

One of IASP’s founding members and a past president, Dr. Melzack proposed a “gate control” theory of pain that suggests people can change or control their suffering by using emotional and personal processes to block, increase or decrease the feeling of pain. His studies led to a conclusion that pain is subjective and multidimensional, and led to innovative treatments for chronic pain patients. He also examined “phantom limb” pain, leading to better understanding of how pain is experienced. The McGill Pain Questionnaire, developed by Dr. Melzack and a colleague, measures the sensory and emotional aspects of pain, has been translated into 57 languages and is widely used in clinical research. Dr. Melzack wrote “The Puzzle of Pain” and co-wrote “The Challenge of Pain.”

Australian Physiotherapist Awarded Grant to Help Manage Sickle Cell Disease Pain in Arab Nations

Lois Tonkin, a Specialist Physiotherapist and Associate Clinical Lecturer at the University of Sydney’s Pain Management Research Institute at Royal North Shore Hospital, has been awarded a grant from the Australian Government Council for Australian-Arab Relations to work with physiotherapists in the Gulf States in the management of chronic pain due to Sickle Cell Disease.  Tonkin’s project is to train physiotherapists working in the Sultan Qaboos University Hospital in Muscat, Oman in the use of cognitive-behavioral principles to help patients manage the ongoing chronic musculoskeletal pain associated with sickle cell disease.

Rarely seen in Australia, Sickle Cell Disease is common in Arabic populations, both in their native countries and also in the UK and USA. This project will introduce the principles of cognitive-behavioral pain management to therapists in the Gulf States to complement their current rehabilitation programs.  It will assess the use of a cognitive-behavioral rehabilitation program for the management of persisting and recurrent pain in patients with sickle cell disease in hospitals in the region, and assess the outcome of the program in their home environment.  The project also aims to enhance the collaboration between therapists in different cultures and countries, with a view to improving understanding and management of persisting pain in different disease processes and cultural backgrounds.  This project also emphasizes the need for international collaboration to recognize and manage persisting pain, and provide support where applicable, a core goal of the IASP.

Dr. Murinson and the IASP Developing Countries Working Group

Dr. Beth Murinson, in conjunction with the Developing Countries Working Group, presented a poster entitled "Pain education as a model for global health impact: Goals and metrics that facilitate change" at the Global Health Council meeting in Washington, D.C.