ABOUT SOMA
Every fifth American suffers from Chronic pain – that is pain that persists for more than 3-6 months – and many more are at risk of developing Chronic pain after severe injuries or surgeries or infections such as COVID-19. Once pain has become chronic, it is very hard to treat, resulting in devastating consequences for the individuals, their families and society as a whole including a non-negligible contribution to the opioid crisis in this country.
New neuroscientific research suggests that chronic pain may be a manifestation of plastic changes in brain circuits that are involved in learning and memory. Yet most treatments for pain still focus almost exclusively on the periphery and not the brain. Understanding the role of learning and expectations for pain may be key to predicting who is at risk of transitioning from acute to chronic pain and building better treatments for those that already suffer from persistent pain.
This is why we spent the last 2 years on developing SOMA.
SOMA is designed to directly support individuals with chronic pain while also gathering the data that will help researchers better predict which patients’ pain will become chronic. The name stems from the Greek word for “body, entire person,” signifying that the app takes a holistic approach to pain. SOMA allows users to track their pain, treatment, and activities—including which efforts affect their pain in positive or negative ways.
The SOMA App is freely available on the App Store and Google Play Store: