Reference no: EM133385729

Case Study: Julia is a 43-year-old White non-Hispanic American who has been experiencing lower back pain. Julia began experiencing pain about 8 months and had been gradually worsening. After a couple of weeks of persistent suffering, she began to think about how this pain could interfere in her daily life, as she is very athletic and every morning she went for 1-hour runs. Julia also became anxious thinking about how she might not be able to go to work, or go on vacation with her family, and most importantly bathe and dress herself. She was nervous about what was happening in her body, what was this pain, was it treatable, and how she might not be able to manage it if her symptoms keep worsening. Now, her pain has gotten that bad that the only thing that she is able to do is lay in bed for the majority of the day, and even that does not make it better. Furthermore, she began experiencing some pain in her legs and upper back. She decided to seek treatment right away at a local hospital, but she has not experienced any improvement in her symptoms.

Have you ever experienced significant pain (if not, can you think of a loved one that has)? How did it affect your life, e.g. personally, socially, academically...?
How did your cognitive representations of illness form and influence your perception of the symptoms? And your experience of those symptoms? And your behavior to seek or not treatment?
Questions: For the following questions try to put yourself in Julia's position.

• What type of pain is Julia experiencing?
• What tool could you use to measure the degree of pain she is experiencing? Why did you choose that measure?
• Knowing she is in severe pain, what treatment technique/es do you think is/are the most effective in her case? Why?
• Do you think that a treatment focused on reducing her suffering would improve her experience of pain? How much do you think subjective suffering plays a role in the bettering or worsening of symptoms?