Barron Associates’ Pain Assessment Technology Begins Clinical Study

Chronic pain is an internal experience that cannot be directly observed or measured. Pain assessment, therefore, is exceptionally challenging, relying largely on self-report measures. The objective of this study is to develop and demonstrate the KnowPain system, an innovative wrist-worn instrument for objectively assessing the functional impact of pain (FIP) throughout the course of a patient’s treatment. The proposed approach will supplement existing methods for assessing patient function by providing novel, objective, and highly complementary information for a more complete (and often unobserved) picture of the impact of chronic pain on patient function during daily living.

The KnowPain wrist-worn instrument is currently being tested in chronic low back pain patients. Pain assessment scores generated by the system are being compared to standard assessment scores and functional capacity evaluations (FCEs).