Background & Aims
Most patients with chronic pain abandon their favorite activities, they stop moving, and their lives become dull, with their social circle often shrinking to nothing. Despite all the pieces of advice from every healthcare professional, those patients stay inactive physically. We had the chance to join a group of adventurers (Versant AKOR) who crossed Canada without using any engine over seven months in a greater-than-oneself project.
In this project, ten chronic pain patients (CPP) had to cover, as a collective challenge, the same distance each week as the group of adventurers. Crossing Canada from North to South was a 7000-kilometer journey. So, the objectives were achieved as a group. Our study question was: Can the feeling of belonging to a group linked to a journey greater-than-oneself over several months motivate individuals suffering from chronic pain to reinvest in their well-being and modify their physical activity routine?
Methods
Both groups were connected virtually. During the seven-month adventure, multiple educational and informal sessions were led by an occupational therapist with topics such as pacing, stress control, and motivation. The CPPs shared their coping strategies and motivation with pleasure and interest. Data were collected through questionnaires and individual interviews eight months after the end of the adventure.
Results
Few patients were depressed or anxious among the ten patients. The multiple discussions between CPPs served as a narrative transformation. The thematic analysis of the interview showed that transformation is a slow process revealed only after weeks of tenacity. Patients’ life narratives changed over the project from the “old idealized me” to the “physically passive me” to the new “accepted and active me”.
The CPP became more physically active before being stopped by pain. They are now engaged in new projects. The initial push of motivation with the greater-than-oneself journey of the adventurers switched to the cruise control effect of the solidarity within the CPPs’ group. Sharing kilometer objectives led CPPs to accept their condition and shift their life narrative.
Conclusions
Seven months is a long commitment. Those months were essential for the patients to notice that changes were finally happening. Moving more, achieving new accomplishments transforms them as their life’s narrative reflects it. A few of our patients were depressed or anxious, but still, they needed the AKOR project to be back in their lives. Reasons for their passivity toward physical activity are still to be found. Maybe they feared the “unknown new me,” so self-sabotage by aiming at too ambitious objectives was calming the need for self-transformation.
We are adding the solidarity aspect of the shared and mutual responsibility at aiming at the kilometer objective as the binder as the greatest motivation. This novel approach for re-introducing movement in a patient suffering from chronic pain is to be targeted in new group therapy. The next step would be to understand how the shared objective led to such a transformation and to evaluate the most appropriate project length.
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Presenting Author
Julia Vignone
Poster Authors
Sylvie Lafrenaye
MD
University of Sherbrooke
Lead Author
Nathalie Clement MD
University of Sherbrooke
Lead Author
Guillaume Moreau PhD
Laval University
Lead Author
Julien Grimard
University of Sherbrooke
Lead Author
Guillaume Leonard
University of Sherbrooke.ca
Lead Author
Topics
- Lifestyle Issues: Sleep/Diet/Exercise/Social Interactions