The Scottish Learning Disabilities Observatory is hosting a workshop on pain care for people with learning and developmental disabilities. We are delighted to welcome international specialists to the University of Glasgow to talk on the subject.

Dr Chantel Burkitt on Practical approaches for pain assessment.

Chantel Burkitt, PhD, is a Senior Clinical Scientist at Gillette Children’s Hospital, a tertiary medical centre dedicated to caring for people with childhood-onset developmental disabilities, in St. Paul Minnesota, USA. She co-directs the Pain & Comfort Research Lab. Her research focuses on advancing pain detection, testing innovative pain management strategies, including virtual reality, and understanding perioperative pain trajectories associated with orthopaedic surgery in children with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Professor Brian McGuire on Accessible psychotherapy for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Brian McGuire, PhD, is a Professor of Clinical Psychology and Co-Director of the Centre for Pain Research at University of Galway in Ireland. He established the Clinical Psychology Training Programme in Galway in 2003 and a Top-Up Doctorate programme in 2012. He has a long-standing interest in both his research and his clinical work on the psychological aspects and impacts of chronic physical illness, particularly chronic pain. Having worked clinically for many years in intellectual disability services, he merged his interests in pain and intellectual disability and this is now his special focus. In his talk he will describe his work on teaching pain communication skills to children with autism and his work in developing a cognitive-behavioural programme for management of chronic pain, specifically for people with an intellectual disability or autism.

Dr Tim Oberlander on Medical management of pain in children and young people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Tim Oberlander is a Developmental Paediatrician and pain physician at BC Children's Hospital (BCCH) in Vancouver Canada. Oberlander has a particular interest in managing pain in children and youth with developmental disabilities. As a scientist he has studied acute pain reactivity in youth with cerebral palsy and behavioral acute pain responses among children with autism. For the past 4 years he has co-led, with his colleague, Dr. Katelynn Beorner, the Living Lab at Home (LLAH) research program at BCCH which offers an opportunity for children and their families to co-design a platform for in-home real world data collection. This novel platform offers an invaluable approach to understanding complex phenomenon, like chronic pain in children with developmental disabilities. In his talk, Dr. Oberlander will offer a practical approach to medical aspects for pain management for children and youth with a developmental disability.