To Örebro University

The pain rehabilitation clinic discussed here is a multicultural environment, with patients from Sweden as well as several other nations. Some are war refugees who have had severe traumatic experiences, and most are not able to work at all. They have been remitted to a five-month multimodal rehabilitation program, and often do not have a deeper awareness regarding their life situation. Mindfulness,

awareness and attention in the present moment, has been found to reduce pain and increase physical and psychological health. The project aims to increase patients’ awareness and acceptance of their life situation, and thereby increase their compliancy with the rehabilitation program. Almost 80 patients used the Mindfulness chart and recorded activities performed, thoughts, emotions, body sensations, levels of perceived stress and energy for three days. Working with the Mindfulness chart may increase one’s awareness of one’s life situation and of where one’s pain may originate from, and can thereby support the rehabilitation strategy. After five months of rehabilitation, when returning to work, the Mindfulness chart and the new awareness of the life situation ("What is possible to work with") can be used together by the patient, the medical team, the regional social insurance office, and the employer to find the best way back for the patient. All patients were not able to fill in the Mindfulness chart and could only fill in minor parts. Reasons for this included: too traumatic, no interpreter, illiterate, too demanding, etc. But even an incompletely filled in chart gave the medical team a good idea of where to start the rehabilitation. The Mindfulness chart may be useful in rehabilitating pain patients.