The long-term objective of our group is to build on knowledge and skills to better meet the challenges of tomorrow in relation to prevention, diagnosis and rehabilitation for patients suffering chronic musculoskeletal pain.
DU/Pain at Dalarna University is a research group, 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."
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.
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.
To improve our users’ experience, we use cookies on the du.se website for analytical purposes. By choosing to surf our website, you also accept the use of cookies.
