Treating Pain to Reduce Disability Among Older Home Health Patients

The main study intervention is training of the PTs on teams randomized into the intervention group in the evidence-based CBPSM program which has been translated for use in home health care with patients who have activity-limiting pain. The program is designed to be implemented in a manner that allows for maximal integration into routine PT care of home health patients. This will be possible because the CBPSM techniques, together with exercise and other PT techniques that constitute customary PT care, are reciprocally reinforcing. Both treatments (CBPSM and PT) encourage the use of similar behavioral and pain self-management coping skills to enhance behavioral activation, perceptions of self-efficacy, self-control, and personal mastery with regard to the management of pain.