The Effect of Pain Neuroscience Education and Behavioural Graded Activity on Chronic Pain in Breast Cancer Survivors

Pain Neuroscience Education (PNE) teaches patients about complex pain mechanisms known to be of importance in pain following breast cancer such as malfunctioning of the endogenous analgesic system and pain memories.

"Patients in the experimental group will receive a behavioural treatment integrated within the concepts of operant conditioning. The purpose of Behavioural Graded Activity (BGA) is to increase the level of physical activity in the patient's daily lives in a time-contingent manner. On top of that, a healthy behaviour will be positively reinforced to consequently create a withdrawal of the attention towards pain behaviour, which is seen as an unreliable alarm sign in chronic pain patients. The implementation of BGA after PNE is described in the guideline reported by the International Association for the Study of Pain."

The content of the leaflet has a biomedical approach in explaining pain and providing information on the different pain medication classes. This leaflet is mostly available in waiting rooms of oncology centres and units of the Flemish part of Belgium.