Dr. Melanie Noel and the PEAK Research Lab team welcome you!
Pain Education, Advocacy, Knowledge
Hello! Welcome to PEAK Research Lab.
We help when it hurts.
Proudly based in the dynamic, interdisciplinary clinical setting of the
Vi Riddell Pain Program (Alberta Children's Hospital) and The University of Calgary,
nestled in the foothills of the awe-inspiring Canadian Rocky Mountains.
Creating better ways to make children's memories for pain and pain experiences more positive.
Our research focus
Why does pain become a problem for some children and not others?
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Working with interdisciplinary clinicians, scientists, and people with lived experience around the world, we study and understand how thoughts, feelings, and behaviours shape pain experiences over time. We champion improvement in children's pain management, while learning from and helping families touched by pain.
We focus on what we can directly change in interventions.
We believe that treatments for child pain can be improved, and that pain problems can be prevented. Pain memories, attention, sleep, and interactions between parents and children following painful events are all on our research radar.
We value people with lived experience as partners.
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Parents can be some of the most powerful and effective intervention agents in their children's pain management. Including parents' thoughts, behaviours and interactions in research studies offer more understanding of how pain experiences are shaped in childhood. Together with parents and children, we can adjust how they think, remember, feel, and respond to pain to dramatically improve how children experience pain.
