ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines psychosocial and physical interventions, reviews evidence for their efficacy and evaluates their potential as techniques for pain management in older adults. It briefly reviews new methods for pain assessment and evaluates their promise for use in an older population. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) consists of a set of psychological techniques to change dysfunctional thoughts and to modify unhelpful beliefs, attitudes and behaviours. Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is one of the approaches comprised in the so-called third wave of CBT. It involves working with important life values and is based on the acceptance of pain without attempting to control or change it. Meditation is a practice to train the mind or induce a mode of consciousness in which the person realizes some benefit or acknowledges the mental contents without identifying with them. Biofeedback is a technique that trains the patients to gain awareness of their physiological functions so that they learn to control them at will.
