Pain researcher and APA Honoured Member Professor Lorimer Moseley has been awarded the Australian Pain Society’s 2026 Distinguished Member Award.

The new Australian Standards for Health Practitioner Pain Management Education were launched at the 46th Australian Pain Society Annual Scientific Meeting by Dr Noam Winter and Professor Helen Slater, members of the team that developed the standards.

Professor Annina Schmid presented the Sunderland Lecture and gave two other talks at this year’s Australian Pain Society Annual Scientific Meeting, exploring the role of neuroinflammation in neuropathic pain.

A clinical reasoning framework for chronic pain was the focus of a pre-conference workshop at the Australian Pain Society Annual Scientific Meeting.

At the 2026 Australian Pain Society’s 46th Annual Scientific Meeting, held in Adelaide in April, the breadth of physiotherapy’s contributions to pain research was highlighted. Here we report on some of the key sessions of interest to physiotherapists – from understanding the biological mechanisms underlying neuropathic pain to practical insights for working with children and adults living with chronic pain – and we present our latest series of videos featuring interviews with speakers about their research.

For more than two decades, Professor Michele Sterling has been at the forefront of pain research, reshaping how physiotherapists understand musculoskeletal injury, chronic pain and recovery after whiplash injury. Michele was recently named in The Australian’s top 250 researchers of 2026 and is the leading researcher in the area of pain and pain management. 

The International Association for the Study of Pain named 2026 as the Global Year for Neuropathic Pain. Zoë Harper, Karri Field and Cameron Dickson of the APA Pain national group present five discussion points about this condition.

PERSISTENT PAIN The combined role of the nervous system and the immune system as a contributor to persistent pain is slowly being worked out by researchers. Physiotherapy researcher Dr Scott Farrell talks about new avenues for investigation.

Journal of Physiotherapy’s Editorial Fellowship gave Dr Tash Pocovi skills, confidence and a new lens on research. With expressions of interest now open, she explains why physiotherapists should apply.

Recent qualitative research has explored some of the barriers to accessing allied health interventions for people with Parkinson’s disease.