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Björn Gerdle

Professor Emeritus

My research focus is mainly the effects of multimodal pain rehabilitation and biochemical changes in chronic pain.

Presentation

In addition to pain, patients with chronic pain often report increased psychological stress, poor quality of life and health. Chronic pain is associated with increased sick leave and high social costs. Pharmacological treatments for chronic pain is often problematic and have limited effects.

The research is based on a biopsychosocial view of pain and is focused on two major areas:

1) The effects of multimodal pain rehabilitation

In complex chronic pain, several measures are needed to noticeably change the situation of the affected person. Such a well-synchronized program of measures is called interdisciplinary pain rehabilitation. It includes psychological interventions, physiotherapeutic measures, teaching about pain, and various efforts to facilitate return to work or studies. Since 1998, there is a quality register for interdisciplinary pain rehabilitation (the Swedish Quality Registry for Pain Rehabilitation) and which registers data from all specialist clinical departments in the country. A national research group has been formed in which various aspects of the effects of multimodal rehabilitation are investigated.

2) Biochemical changes in chronic pain

Understanding the biological mechanisms of chronic pain is very limited. This limitation makes it difficult to assess patients and develop new and optimized treatment methods. In different tissues, for example, muscle, blood and cerebrospinal fluid, the protein content is examined with the aim of understanding if there are changes in patients with chronic pain compared to healthy persons. We also investigate whether clinical variables such as pain intensity and psychological stress are related to the protein pattern. The research is done within the Painomics® Research group.

 

Publications

Selected publications

Cover of publication ''
Björn Gerdle, Sophia Akerblom, Gunilla Brodda Jansen, Paul Enthoven, Malin Ernberg, Huan-Ji Dong, Britt-Marie Stalnacke, Bjorn O. Ang, Katja Boersma (2019)

Journal of Pain Research , Vol.12 , s.891-908 Continue to DOI

Cover of publication ''
Karin Wåhlén, Bijar Ghafouri, Nazdar Ghafouri, Björn Gerdle (2018)

Frontiers in Psychology , Vol.9 Continue to DOI

Latest publications

2024

Peter Molander, Mehmed Novo, Asa Ringqvist, Andrea Hallstam, Hugo Hesser, Monika Lofgren, Britt-Marie Stalnacke, Björn Gerdle (2024) INTERDISCIPLINARY PAIN REHABILITATION FOR PATIENTS WITH EHLERS-DANLOS SYNDROME AND HYPERMOBILITY SPECTRUM DISORDERS Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine, Vol. 56, Article jrm12431 Continue to DOI
Björn Gerdle, Olof Dahlqvist Leinhard, Eva Lund, Peter Lundberg, Mikael Forsgren, Bijar Ghafouri (2024) Pain and the biochemistry of fibromyalgia: patterns of peripheral cytokines and chemokines contribute to the differentiation between fibromyalgia and controls and are associated with pain, fat infiltration and content FRONTIERS IN PAIN RESEARCH, Vol. 5, Article 1288024 Continue to DOI
Björn Gerdle, Elena Dragioti, Marcelo Rivano Fischer, Asa Ringqvist (2024) Acceptance and Fear-Avoidance Mediate Outcomes of Interdisciplinary Pain Rehabilitation Programs at 12-Month Follow-Up: A Clinical Registry-Based Longitudinal Cohort Study from the Swedish Quality Registry for Pain Rehabilitation (SQRP) Journal of Pain Research, Vol. 17, p. 83-105 Continue to DOI
Emmanuel Bäckryd, Andreas Themistocleous, Niclas Stensson, Andrew S. C. Rice, Solomon Tesfaye, David L. Bennett, Björn Gerdle, Bijar Ghafouri (2024) Serum levels of endocannabinoids and related lipids in painful vs painless diabetic neuropathy: results from the Pain in Neuropathy Study Pain, Vol. 165, p. 225-232 Continue to DOI

2023

Monika Löfgren, Angelica Sandström, Indre Bileviciute-Ljungar, Kaisa Mannerkorpi, Björn Gerdle, Malin Ernberg, Peter Fransson, Eva Kosek (2023) The effects of a 15-week physical exercise intervention on pain modulation in fibromyalgia: Increased pain-related processing within the cortico-striatal- occipital networks, but no improvement of exercise-induced hypoalgesia Neurobiology of Pain, Vol. 13, p. 100114-100114, Article 100114 Continue to DOI

Research

Organisation