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A GROUP OF pain researchers at NUI Galway are looking for people who suffer from chronic pain to take part in a new online programme.
Psychologists and physiotherapists at the Centre for Pain Research have devised the treatment programme to help people who have been suffering from pain which has lasted for three months or more.
The trial, based on acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and supported by the Health Research Board, will provide eight online sessions for people to do at home.
Chronic pain affects up to 35% of the Irish population and is increasingly recognised as a disease in its own right.
It is sometimes associated with psychological effects, which may include anxiety and changes in mood, as well as forgetfulness, and difficulties in focusing and making decisions.
The ACT trial is based on emerging clinical science that demonstrates the usefulness of managing chronic pain through mindfulness and psychological wellbeing.
Arthritis and chronic lower back pain
Dr Christopher Dwyer, coordinator of the study, said psychological therapies provided to people with chronic pain are “beneficial, particularly for people at risk of long-term disability”.
“This type of service is often only accessible via specialised hospital-based pain management teams. In this trial, we will offer this type of service to people all over the country and at any stage of injury.”
About 300 people have signed up to take part so far.
Dwyer told TheJournal.ie these people are presenting with a range of conditions but fibromyalgia, arthritis and chronic lower back pain are frequently coming up.
He said 40% of chronic pain involves lower back pain, and there is often no physiological cause for the pain, noting: “It’s just there. As a result trying to medicate the pain is very difficult.”
Dwyer noted that a great deal of research has been carried out internationally on the effects on mindfulness on chronic pain. He want to see how it works in an Irish context.
“If you’re in pain it wouldn’t hurt to do this.
Many people don’t want to go to the doctor. Alternatively they’ve been suffering for years and nothing else has worked. We have designed it in a way that people can do it from comfort of their own home at a time that suits them.
GPs and physiotherapists around the country have been asked to refer suitable people to the study, which is free-of-charge.
The closing date for applications is Friday, 29 April. More information can be read here.
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Incredible in this day and age people still fall for the ‘African Prince with lotsa money but needs funds to release said money’ scam…come on folks….
maybe loneliness was a factor, this lady seems to have wanted it to real so much
It’s in the nature of the beast !!!
I know it’s tempting to laugh at others’ naïvety, but when you think about the outcome it’s little different to all those pensioners who get duped by fake bank employees, rogue property dealers and cowboy tradesmen. Another lonely, emotionally vulnerable person has been left in financial ruin while some keyboard-savvy lowlife is laughing as he wallows in his loot.
Some very clever scammers out there.
A friend of mine met an American woman online who spun a terrific yarn about wanting to come to Ireland to study Irish folklore. Really convincing. Communicated with her for ages, she was tying up loose ends and moving lock, stock and barrel to Dublin where she was enrolled in UCD.
Three times I had to stop him from forwarding money to her, we almost fell out over this fictitious person.
My argument:
‘If as you say she ‘Truly loves you’ then she will find a way to make it here’
Eventually the penny dropped when she contacted him from Amsterdam airport asking him to forward a few thousand euros to facilitate her claim that she was financially self sufficient entering the EU.
She is a fool & a gold digger – No sympathy 4 her at all. HA HA HA.
Iv a friend feel for someone living here with friends .. Went home to visit and have medical checks eat as cheaper at home ! She said she had cancer ! .. Needed thousands for treatment .. We convinced him eventually .. Turned out one of her friends was her husband !
Wha?????
Loneliness leaves people very vulnerable
Yeah so does ger wish 4 a ‘luxury’ life.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3887493.stm getting revenge on the scammers
That’s brilliant Peter!
A real pity,but hard to believe ppl fall for this carry on now a days!
People over 60 wouldn’t be as Internet savy as younger people add loneliness to that and you have the perfect victim.
Why does this seem to happen a bit more in the UK. My working theory is that British women are a bit more soppy romantics compared to savvy sceptical and can’t take a complement Irish women.
i know some irish women who’d bite the head off you for complementing them
Fred it happens here too. The victims keep it quiet. wouldn’t you?
I do NOT look lovely today!!!!!
haha thats it Deborah on the button!
Mark Hamilton…better known as Luke Skywalkerton
Poor silly woman
Literally!
It’s the lowest of the low.Preying on that poor woman’s emotions.
I’ve got 20 million resting in my account but I need 50 grand to release it, can anyone help me? I’m also a prince, good looking and single…
I hope that isn’t her profile picture on the dating site.
Yes, I see the Met Police caption perfectly clear now.
A prominent Irish businessman, highly experienced, was defrauded or scammed of almost 750k sterling to get the ex Emperor of Angola’s uncut diamonds worth 400 million sterling from a Safe Deposit box in Amsterdam.
People can be conned by greed, by pretend romance , by the need or want to help and due to vulnerabilities.
These romance scams are supposedly very prevalent but rarely surface due to acute embarrassment.
Who was that Michael?
‘£4 million in gold deposits in Ghana he was trying to have released from the bank. He claimed that after he had recovered his wealth from the bank he would come to Foster and they would spend their retirement together in luxury. He just needed some additional funds in order to complete the deal.’
With collateral like that I could afford to live in Dublin.
just about
It has become a major industry in Ghana and Nigeria High quality internet access in Ghana to facilitate the scammers
Sort of revenge for all the bad colonial experience
No fool like an old fool,
As they say… there’s one born every minute…
….and two to take ‘em.
Hard to feel sorry for her even after being arrested for money laundering and this chap even had her allow other women to use her account to send him money, how would they have fitted into their supposed future together?? Flipping hell after being arrested and giving her story to police she was obviously informed of that this was a clearly a scammer preying on her and these other women yet she continued to send her savings and even go into debt for him. Nah, there’s desperate, gullible and lonely and there’s this, being arrested and landing in a world of legal trouble yet continues to just give away her savings to a charming stranger in Africa of all places. Plain stupidity.
One born every minute..
wow some people are so stupid
Stupid is as stupid does….
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