Patricias story – chronic pain A glance at Patricia’s first behavioural activity diary said it all. “Stayed in bed ‘til 12 noon.” “Sat and watched TV.” “Tired, fell asleep on sofa.” “Nothing – just sat and cried,” are typical entries. Pat, aged 48, divorced with three grown-up children had been in pain for two years and was diagnosed with chronic widespread pain. She had been off sick from work for a year, and had become depressed as her pain spiralled out of control. Apart from occasionally picking her granddaughter up from school she had no routine to her day. After the odd “good day” when she tried to cram in as much as possible she then felt terrible the next day. She had got into debt on her credit card; she was lonely and hardly ever went out of the house. With the help of her therapist she decided on various goals: To meet a friend once a week. To read a book for at least 30 minutes a day, and to sort out her debt. She also had to write a list of routine, pleasurable and necessary things in her life, and decided that she would try and do small amounts of housework followed by lots of rests. She managed to get up at 11am, not 12 noon. She established more routine, started tackling her debt by making an appointment with her bank manager, picking up her granddaughter a little more often, and cooking herself proper meals. Eventually she even started doing some charity work helping in a charity shop one day a week. Over the weeks, Pat, with the constant help of her therapist, filled in a number of behavioural activation diaries, which slowly revealed that although she was still in pain, that with rest and by carefully pacing herself, she was increasingly in control of it, not the other way round.
Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 08:30:26 +0000