Circles of engagement: Childhood pain and parent brain

Abstract

Social interaction can have a profound effect on individual behavior, perhaps most salient in interactions between sick suffering children and their parents. Chronic pain is a difficult condition that can produce considerable changes in behaviors in children that can secondarily have profound effects on their parents. It may create a functionally disabling negative feedback loop. Research supports the notion of alterations in the brain of individuals who observe and empathize with loved ones in acute pain. However, neural activity in relation to empathic responses in the context of chronic pain has not been examined. Ongoing suffering with chronic pain in a child can result in child's brain circuit alterations. However, prolonged suffering jointly experienced by the parent may putatively also produce maladaptive changes in their neural networks and consequently in parental behaviors. Here we put forth the conceptual framework for ‘Chronic pain contagion’ (CPC). We review the underlying processes in CPC and we discuss implications for devising and implementing treatments for children in chronic pain and their parents.

Testing the effectivity of the mixed virtual reality training Into D’mentia for informal caregivers of people with dementia: protocol for a longitudinal, quasi-experimental study

“…Empathic reactions of negative situations (like caring for a relative with pain or, in this case, dementia) can lead to stress or negative changes in neural networks. 29 To ensure the safety and well-being of the participants, immediately after the training, an individual conversation with the trainer is organised. During this conversation, the participants discuss their experiences in the simulator, and the trainer comforts the participants if needed.…”

Supporting Parent Caregivers of Children with Life-Limiting Illness

“…Because of this connection, children with life-limiting illness may be directly affected by the psychological well-being of their parents. For example, a parent’s response to their child’s pain may affect the child’s experience of that pain [ 38 ]. In one study, children whose parents were oriented toward their pain and distress, without being self-oriented (responding out of self-protection to the distress that the child’s pain may have caused in the parent) had less observable pain and distress and a more positive disposition during cancer treatments [ 39 ].…”

Parental emotion and pain control behaviour when faced with child's pain: the emotion regulatory role of parental pain-related attention-set shifting and heart rate variability

“…Indeed, findings amongst healthy schoolchildren [7] and children with chronic pain [8] have demonstrated that parental distress when anticipating/observing their child's pain contributes to increased restriction of child pain and painful physical activity. While controlling pain has adaptive value by protecting from further harm, persistent efforts to control child's pain may contribute to increased child disability by diminishing engagement in daily activities [12,38,39,53,54,55,71]. Given the central role of parental emotional distress, parental emotion regulation ability is considered fundamental in buffering (or strengthening) the occurrence of distress and pain control behaviours elicited by child's pain displays [25,68,69].…”