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International Conference on

NEUROLOGY AND NEUROSCIENCE

MENTAL HEALTH AND PRIMARY CARE

October 16-18, 2017 | Toronto, Canada

J Neurol Neurorehabil Res 2017 | Volume 2 Issue 3

The spirituality of chronic pain and neurological disease

Julian Ungar-Sargon

Harrison College, USA

ver the course of a lifetime in clinical neurology and

well documented in the literature that those who pay

attention to the human dimension of pain and suffering and

have the means and resources for spiritual and psychological

care, do better in terms of outcomes. I have been interested

in the spiritual dimension of pain and the way ethnic,

cultural, social and religious variables affect the outcome of

syndromes with the identical pathologies. I will be presenting

cases that reflect the need to pay more attention to the way

we frame illness and disease, since the narratives we obtain

from patients often move us in the wrong direction. I claim

that were we open spaces for the patient to reflect upon

the human effect of disease in their lives and relationships,

we might be better equipped to manage chronic pain

and neurological disease in other ways than merely the

pharmacological. In doing so, we also open ourselves to

vulnerability and difficult philosophical questions referred to

the meaning of suffering, theodicy etc. We therefore need

to be equipped with our own spiritual tool kits to deal with

such issues. The need for further data as to the efficacy of

strategies addressing the human dimension of pain and

suffering is urgently needed.

Speaker Biography

Julian Ungar-Sargon teaches Health Sciences at Harrison College in Lafayette and

works in full-time clinical practice that includes interventional pain management

and neurology. He serves the Hoosier State in the Indiana Guard Reserve (MAJ) as

Executive Officer (XO) and Commander of Physician Company of the 19th Medical

Regiment. The goal on this command is to develop a rapidly deployable mobile medical

unit to respond to terrorism, mass casualty, chemical and biological terror, protecting

the citizens of Indiana. He was awarded the Merit of Honor medal by the OSMTH order

of Templars in 2013 for medical service to the indigent of Indiana. He was Awarded

Indiana’s Highest Civilian Award, the Sagamore of Wabash in 2016 by Gov. Pence.