Brussels, 26/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - A new interest group on the brain, mind and pain announced that it was officially being set up at the European Parliament on Wednesday 25 February. This group was launched by the European Federation of Neurological Associations (EFNA) and Pain Alliance Europe (PAE), two umbrella organisations representing patients at national and European levels.
The interest group is sponsored by the German research laboratory Grünenthal, which specialises in treating pain. The group seeks to promote awareness about neurological and chronic pain, carry out research and provide innovative treatment, given that these kinds of conditions still remain largely unknown or misunderstood.
Across Europe, two thirds of people with brain disorders receive no treatment and 40% of people with chronic pain report that it is not adequately controlled. The interest group will firstly concentrate on the problems currently encountered by people suffering from these conditions. One of the biggest problems is the fact that many people with neurological or pain disorders experience high levels of stigma from the general population, mainly because there is little knowledge about them. “These long-term conditions severely impact quality of life, often leading to considerable disability and sometimes to reduced life expectancy. EFNA and PAE felt more attention and better access to treatment was long overdue, a new Parliament with many fresh faces was the ideal opportunity to launch the new group,” said EFNA President Audrey Craven. During the organisation's inaugural launch at the European Parliament, Grünenthal gave politicians and other stakeholders a chance to test out a local neuropathic pain stimulator, an experience that allowed those that tried it to “get a real perception of the feelings created by neuropathic pain and understand why they are the subject of such a variety of descriptions”, explained Professor Roberto Casale from the Montescano Pain School in Italy. (Isabelle Lamberty)