Description

In this thought-provoking talk, the speaker challenges pain physicians to expand their role beyond pain relief and toward managing neuroinflammation and promoting movement, brain health, and social connection. Drawing from clinical experience and emerging research, he highlights how pain interventions can reduce dementia risk, modulate microglia, and improve autonomic dysfunction. He introduces underrecognized concepts like the inflammasome and sensome, and advocates for precision medicine approaches involving proteomics. A clinical case series on cervical spinal cord stimulation for patients with CRPS and autonomic symptoms reveals promising results in fatigue and brain fog, underscoring the need to broaden pain care into whole-patient, neuroimmune restoration.