links

Great blog posts by people I respect

First up from How to Live with Pain – Making positive psychological changes – including acceptance.  Just don’t put a timeframe on it, is my opinion.  Acceptance doesn’t mean you have to like your pain, it just means you let it be there without judging it.

You just HAVE to go to Dr Rob’s Musings of a Distractible Mind.  He always makes me laugh and think all at the same time!  Beware of grammatical elitism – those who would say that by ‘wantonly leav[ing] out spaces betweenwords and endanger the very fabric of the spacetime continuum by doingso’.  You decide whether healthcare should be two words or one… OK?

Psychology of pain – for hours of reading pleasure – Through this blog I found this link to ‘Overlapping Conditions’ – things like chronic fatigue syndrome, endometriosis, fibromyalgia, interstitial cystitis, irritable bowel syndrome, temporomandibular joint all overlap to a great extent.  Mohammed Yunus writes about these and describes them as central sensitisation disorder – worth a look.

Go on, take a look at Science-based Medicine blog – if anyone has EVER thought I was opinionated, think again – this is opinionated, and GREAT!  Don’t read it if you’re into energy healing or mythology of autism and immunisation, or any of the other myriad health fraud or woo disinformation that’s around.

Don’t panic, if you’re not mentioned here – it doesn’t mean I don’t love ya, just need more time and energy!!

Friday Funnies and great places to go on the web

I know, I know… late with FF’s and missed a week – life is hectic at the moment, and I’m prioritising a teeny bit. However, I couldn’t resist the following, courtesy of Manly Jack. Not quite 1001 uses for duct tape, but close!



Great places on the web:

How to Cope with Pain – always good content for people who have chronic pain
PTJess’s blog – on things physical and good for you
Health informaticists – know what they are and what they can do for you? Take a look at (the) health informaticist blog for excellent content and links
Living Mindfully – ACT-based practice in Chicago with some wonderful content on ACT and mindfulness, along with notices on courses – Notice I’m not endorsing the courses, just the content that’s available, because I don’t advertise on this blog.

Last but not least – Heidi Allen Online – social media resources in healthcare . A valuable set of resources for health providers wanting to use Web 2.0

Friday Funnies – and special places on the net

Things I wish were real…and some that actually are.

Yes, that’s a USB pet rock.  It simply sits. Being a rock.

– if you get the munchies?

An occupational therapists ‘extreme solution’ (please, don’t!)

And special people and places I’ve seen…

Marianna Paulson, aka AuntieStress (on Twitter) – a warm, caring person who shares readily and writes about life as it is – go here for a taste

Research Blogging, edited by Dave Munger, tireless, indefatigable man with humour and passion for getting real research ‘out there’ – go here for the latest research posts

Tony Bridge – for a visual feast, and unafraid to be himself online and share his ups and downs, he comes across as very real – go here for stunning pictures

That’s it for today – I hope your weekend refreshes, enchants and engages your imagination.

Friday Funnies – and some great links

Oh no, the Friday Funnies, full of cringe-making ‘funnies’.  Try to enjoy them – they’re there to help you prepare for your weekend (you know you’ll need a drink after looking at them!)

I recently posted a list of ‘doctor’ or health care rules courtesy of Dr Rob of Musings of a Distractible Mind – this is a link to the accompanying patient rules, I thought they might be useful.

For a tasty snack, probably designed to make sure you remain healthy of spirit and soul while less so of artery and heart…take a look at this recipe for shortbread from Borealnz’s blog

The brilliant Ben Goldacre never ceases to amaze me with his wry comments on both his Twitter feed and his Bad Science blog. He’s never shy of taking on the misinformed or the shonky – and his sense of humour is great.  This is a good example. Voices of the Ancients, debunking mystic nonsense published in British newspapers.

Last but not least.  Let it never be said that I shied away from promoting the hardy souls who toil in the world’s largest island (or is that the smallest continent).

First up is NOI Group, or Neuro Orthopaedic Institute, with the colourful David Butler who sports more pairs of groovy glasses than anyone I’ve ever seen.  This is the site for mirrorbox, laterality and Explain Pain.

And next is the loquacious Lorimer Moseley who, along with a few others, blogs on Body in Mind.  His blog features not only some of his most up-to-date research carried out on pain, but also promotes new PhD’s by publishing a brief summary of their research too.  You can follow them on Twitter as well (and I believe there is a Facebook page or group to join also).

The last, but not an Australian, is the wonderful Diane Jacobs, who is a most prolific reader and linker on Twitter under the name @dfjpt, and also on Facebook with the group ‘Neuroscience and Pain Science for Manual Physical Therapists’

Well, that should leave you with a few thoughts links for the weekend – enjoy!

101 Fascinating Brain Blogs at Online Education Database

Take a look at this list of great sites on things ‘brain’ – from lighter to really intense, at least one or two of these blogs will have something for you!

While you’re there, the Library holds a range of really good material to inspire you and inform you, especially if you’re taking an on-line education course.

Links and other good things from my intray

One of the great things about being an information junkie is the amount of cool stuff that I get to read via the internet and email.  So I thought I’d show you some of the stuff I’ve got in the last little while.

First up is the Pain Blog Carnival run by How to Cope with Pain.  The topic this month is Thankfulness, because it’s that time of the year.  We don’t have this event in New Zealand – shame really – because it’s a great idea to celebrate all that people are thankful for.  I’m especially thankful that I live here in New Zealand – it’s a beautiful country, beautiful scenery, wonderfully open and friendly people, and the lifestyle is incredible.  Not to mention that people in New Zealand can understand me, while in other parts of the world people can find my accent somewhat hard to follow!

Next is a regular newsletter I get from RTW Matters. This week is especially cool because it has notice of a new RTW guide for occupational therapists, published by the esteemed Canadian Institute for Work and Health, in collaboration with the Ontario Society of Occupational Therapists and College of Occupational Therapists, Ontario. I’ll be commenting on this soon, so come on back for more! (more…)

BIG list of pain-related websites

Pain Treatment Topics is a big site full of wonderful resources.  They’ve just reviewed a whole range of sites on the web and listed those that meet their criteria.  To quote:

Pain Treatment Topics evaluated the Internet sites below as being essentially non-commercial and serving the information and education needs of the pain management community. Websites do not qualify for linking if they have a primary purpose of selling specific products or services, offer opinions or viewpoints that are not scientifically substantiated, present information in a way that might be confusing or misleading to our audience, and/or have primarily a political agenda.

This is a VAST list of sites – if you can’t find something of interest in here, I’d be very surprised!

They don’t include me 😦 – but I’m only a little fella in the Big Big world of pain information.  The only comment I’d make is that there are an awful lot of medically-oriented sites, and a LOT fewer psychosocial or management sites.  That’s a shame, since there are so many people who don’t find pain reduction ‘solves the problem’ and there are a lot of health professionals who would like to find out how to help them.

If you have enjoyed browsing my site, and want to subscribe – click on the RSS feedlink above.  Or if you prefer to actually visit the site, just bookmark and come on back!  Comments are always welcome (even if you disagree!), and if you want to see more information about a certain topic, do let me know.

Spread the word too, if you enjoy the site – the more people visiting, the happier I feel!  Currently I have around 170 hits a day, and growing, so I’m happy, but it would be cool to reach the giddy heights of someone like Dr Deb or Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science site (I”m dreaming, all right?!).

Psychology of pain…

A couple of links to some interesting reads…. One of them I picked up from Psychology of pain, written by  which a link to this RSS feed… If you’re not certain about RSS feeds, don’t panic! Most of our browsers (Firefox or Internet Explorer, for example) have the ability to add in a gadget to the toolbar (menu bar at the top of the browser) which means you simply click and a list of headlines appears below.  You can always go to Google to find out more, but it’s pretty easy.  I just did that, and found this link to PRESSfeed, which gives you a nice easy overview, and a ‘how to’.

Anyway, this particular RSS feed is based in ‘HubMed’ which I hadn’t heard of, but today when I clicked on the link, listed a good bunch of posts all from journals on topics about psychology and pain.  Worth linking to if you’re not currently subscribed to any Table of Contents links like Amedeo.  If you haven’t looked at Amedeo before, you simply subscribe, identify the topics you’re interested in, and each week, or more often, you’ll get an email listing the most recent articles in a range of listed journals.

This is another RSS feed I found on Psychology of Pain site, again it covers a range of articles, this time from the PubMed database.  Yesterday’s listings included a study on sleep, and a study on the Dimensions of Pain Quality…

PsychBlog is an interesting psychology blog – it’s readable, been running for a while now so not likely to disappear unexpectedly, and it has some great links.  This post is about a study I posted on a while back, but perhaps a bit more thoughtfully than I did – so worth a look.  And while you’re there, take a look at the wealth of other information that’s on that blog.  Fantastic!  BTW – this area is his ‘Resource’ area, take a look NOW, or you’ll be missing out on a lot of info!

‘Nuff from me for now – have a browse, and think about subscribing to one of those feeds.  Oh and if you’re wandering through the internet and find some cool stuff – give me a quick email and I’ll post them on here to share!  And that would be one way I could find out if there is anyone else out there…. *echo**echo**echo**echo*

A couple of geeky websites!

I just thought I’d post a couple of websites I’ve found over the past couple of days – using StumbleUpon. If you haven’t tried StumbleUpon, and you find yourself at a loose end, or just feel like ‘browsing’ the internet instead of watching TV, try it! Full of cool sites that show up randomly, or you can guide it by adding keywords for the areas you’re interested in.

Brain Explorer is a site put together by Lundbeck Institute. It has a wide range of information, but the bits I liked the most were the Brain Atlas section, and the gallery. Lots of great images, and relatively simple explanations.

Science Daily has a wealth of newsworthy links and posts. Headings of ‘Health & Medicine’, ‘Mind & Brain’, ‘Plants & Animals’, ‘Earth & Climate’ and more – videos, articles and images. Great reading, you can spend a long time on this site!

Zack Lynch blogs about Neurotechnology on Brain Waves. He lists a bunch of quite technical blogs that he regularly visits, as well as some links that are well worth browsing on Neuroresources. Latest blog entries include the Allen Spinal Cord Altas, What’s your Brain Age?, and a great video by Jill Bolte Taylor. Worth a visit!

And my final link for today – Changing Minds is a huge site with a whole bunch of information and links to factors that influence change. From Argument to Brand Management, Theories and Techniques, this site has plenty to keep you interested, especially if you’re curious about how to help people change. Definitely one to bookmark.

I hope you have a moment or two to spend perusing the links – they’re fun and you can spend lots of time just locating information, for the true information junkie like me!!