A high school course for students with chronic pain is helping Alberta teens manage their grades alongside a potentially debilitating condition.
The 10-week course, offered at Edmonton’s Stollery Children’s Hospital, teaches students the ins and outs of their condition, including offering them coping skills to manage the fits of pain.
Some experts have estimated that as many as one in five teenagers lives with chronic pain, an umbrella term for persistent pain that lasts for an extended period of time.
According to figures from the Alberta government, students with chronic pain miss about one day of school a week.
“It really destroys every factor of your life,” said 15-year-old Emma Snow, who has suffered from chronic pain in her back since a gymnastics injury two years ago.
“It was so hard to go to school and focus. My grades were going down.”
The constant ache prevented Snow from eating, sleeping and focusing in class.
“Anxiety was getting worse and I was getting depressed and it was hard,” she said.
But since earning the course credit, Snow has felt a new sense of freedom.
“It's so much better now, I have a social life, I travel … I love life right now,” she said. “It gave me a sense of like ‘Oh yeah, you're going through it too and we can be here for each other.’”
Eighteen students have been through the program so far, and more are expected to join.
“The number of Albertans suffering with chronic pain continues to grow, and I think it's really important, especially in early years, if you can develop strategies and help students feel that not only is focusing on strategies to address their chronic pain going to help them … but it’s also going to help them finish high school,” said Alberta Health Minister Sarah Hoffman.
With files from CTV’s Alberta Bureau Chief Janet Dirks
