DU/Pain at Dalarna University is a research group within Public Health and Sports, which has several externally funded projects. Our focus is chronic pain, which is a major public health problem that means suffering for the individual and huge costs for society.
Pain is defined as:
"An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, actual or potential tissue damage."
International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) 2020
In our projects, we work with a wide range of scientific methods for laboratory-based and registry-based research as well as clinical studies. Our group is interdisciplinary (physiotherapists, doctors, psychologists, occupational therapists and engineers).
We work actively to understand and critically evaluate health-related outcome variables from a translational and biopsychosocial perspective.
Research - Registry-Based, Clinical and Laboratory-Based
As part of our registry-based research, we have spent a great deal of time building the database FRIDA (For Research In DAlarna), named after Frida Khalo. The database holds data on approximately 100 000 people with chronic pain. Information is collected from the Swedish National Quality Registry for Pain Rehabilitation, the Micro Data for Analysis of the Social Insurance Register, (Försäkringskassan), the National Patient Register (Patientregistret), the National Prescribed Drug Register (Läkemedelsregistret); and the Statistics Sweden registry relating to income and education.
In clinical research, we work together with pain rehabilitation clinics in several regions to develop and improve rehabilitation for people with chronic pain.
In our laboratory-based research, we use the Sports and Health Laboratory at Dalarna University, where numerous tests of physical performance and function can be conducted.
A reportage on our research group can be found in the physiotherapy journal SENS no. 2, 2020:
Forskargrupp med fokus på smärta vid Högskolan Dalarna (page 8) (in Swedish)
Chronic Pain – a Major Global Problem
Approximately 1.5 billion people worldwide currently suffer from chronic pain, and this number is on the increase. Within the EU alone, the costs of chronic pain are estimated to be about 560 billion dollars - equal then to SEK 5 200 billion. This can be compared with Sweden's total gross domestic product (GDP), which in 2018 stood at SEK 4 834 billion.
Members
Andreas Monnier, Postdoctoral researcher at Dalarna University
anmo@du.se
External member
Riccardo LoMartire, Statistician at Region Dalarna
riccardo.lomartire@regiondalarna.se
Research Projects
Ett intelligent och patient-specifikt kliniskt beslutsstödsystem med syfte att effektivisera multimodal specialistvård för patienter med långvarig smärta
Start Date: 2023-01-01
Smärta efter hjärtinfarkt - en ökad risk för död?
Start Date: 2021-08-09
eVIS-projektet: utvärdering av eVISualisering av fysisk aktivitet och smärta (eVIS) som tillägg till multimodal smärtrehabilitering
Start Date: 2021-02-01
Långvarig smärta och utveckling av hjärtkärlsjukdom
Start Date: 2020-09-01
Effektivitet av multimodal rehabilitering vid långvarig muskuloskeletal smärta
Start Date: 2018-01-01
Fysisk aktivitet, rörelsekontroll och muskelaktivitet hos personer med långvarig smärta
Start Date: 2018-01-01
Publications
Collaboration
We collaborate with researchers from:
Financing
Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (FORTE)
The Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet)
Personskadeförbundet RTP
Further Research at Dalarna University
Forskargruppen för Mätteknik inom Idrott - Swedish Unit for Metrology in Sports (SUMS) (In Swedish)