Remembering the pain of childhood

Infants can form memories of pain from as early as birth. Once formed, these memories play a powerful role in shaping future pain and health care experiences. As children acquire language and their explicit memory system develops, these memories become constructed and reconstructed in their interactions with others and, particularly for young children, in their interactions with parents.

Memory is not like a tape recorder. You can’t play back an experience and expect it will be recounted exactly as it happened. Rather, memories are highly susceptible to distortion. Children who develop negative biases in memory (i.e., they recall more pain than they initially experienced) are at risk for developing fears and avoidance of pain and heath care, and of having acute pain transition to chronic pain. Emerging research suggests brain regions associated with memory are connected to chronic pain in youth. Once pain becomes chronic in adolescence, more pathological forms of remembering may develop (such as in post-traumatic stress disorder), which can further exacerbate pain and decrease quality of life.

In this free webinar recording, Dr. Melanie Noel describes a program of research that is examining the factors linking childhood memories and pain, the role of pain-related memories in future pain experiences, and the development of a parent-led intervention that aims to reframe children’s memories of pain to buffer against the development of memory biases and support better pain outcomes in the future.

After watching this webinar recording, you will be able to:

• Understand the powerful role children’s memories of pain play in shaping future painful experiences
• Describe the factors that influence whether children will develop positive or distressing pain memories
• Reframe children’s pain memories to be more positive through three simple language techniques