The inaugural National Pain Awareness Week will be launched in Hamilton on Sunday with an afternoon forum on understanding and coping with chronic pain.

The forum will take place from 1-6 p.m. at the Royal Botanical Gardens on Plains Road West in Burlington, with three keynote speakers, as well as information displays. The speaker presentations will start at 3 p.m.

The session is sponsored by McMaster University's Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Pain Research and Care and organized by the local Chronic Pain Sufferers Support Group. The forum marks the beginning of Pain Awareness Week across Canada, which originated with the passing of a Private Member's bill in Parliament last fall.

With the theme Give Pain a Face, organizers of the local forum are hoping to get across the message that there needs to be more awareness of the prevalence of chronic pain and how it affects individuals as well as society. Often referred to as the silent epidemic, it is estimated that nearly 30 per cent of Canadians suffer from chronic pain, which is defined as pain that persists for more than six months.

James Henry, scientific director of the pain institute, says that until recently, pain was usually treated as a symptom of another ailment. Now, scientists and some health care professionals recognize that chronic pain is an illness onto itself, and should be treated as such.

Kiran Yashpal, a pain institute researcher and organizer of the local Pain Awareness Day forum, hopes the event here, and others taking place across Canada, will help those suffering from chronic pain, as well as raise awareness among the public and government officials about the importance of addressing the often-hidden condition with improved resources and support.

The three speakers at the forum are:

• Terry Bremner, of Halifax, a support group development officer with the Chronic Pain Association of Canada, who will discuss goal-setting and coping for chronic pain patients;
• Angela Mailis-Gagnon, director of the Comprehensive Pain Program at Toronto Western Hospital, whose topic is Making the Mind Body Connection;
• Michael Salter, director of the University of Toronto Centre for the Study of Pain, whose topic is Understanding Pain Mechanisms: What's on the Horizon?

The forum is supported financially by Janssen-Ortho Inc., McNeil Consumer Healthcare, Medtronic of Canada, Pfizer Canada and Purdue Pharma. It is open to the public and there is no charge to attend. Anyone who is interested in attending or would like more information should contact Judi Butler at 905-319-6345, or by e-mail, judibutler@sympatico.ca.

During Pain Awareness Week, Hamilton Health Sciences will have in-house information kiosks and hospital staff training on all types of pain.