EPQ Presentation Script PDF

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EPQ Presentation script...

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Slide 1: Title - Explore the validity of the use of psychotherapy in treating chronic pain, - How it can be done - Compare drug therapy with psychotherapy in treating chronic pain Slide 2: Why EPQ and Neuroscience? EPQ: - To challenge myself outside of my A-Level studies - To gain skills for university and my future career ○ research ○ independent work ○ organisation ○ planning Neuroscience: ○ Neuroscience is the study of the structure and function of the nervous system; the link between behaviour and brain activity ○ To build a foundation in a certain condition (chronic pain), explore neuroplasticity Slide 3: My EPQ Journey - Steps to writing my essay - The difficulties I faced - How I overcame them - What I learned from this experience Slide 4: Forming the question - Found this to be the hardest part - Started with nootropics (drugs that increase one’s productivity), changed it because: ○ Not enough information for a 5000 word essay ○ I wanted to focus on more of a biological approach rather than an ethical one Slide 5: Planning - The plan on the slide isn’t what I ended up using for my final report. - I change it to make it more concise. - Instead of looking at negative and positive mindset, I decided to focus on a specific treatment psychotherapy. And how the individual can cure themselves if they alter their outlook and way of thinking - I picked one idea to focus on - validity of psychotherapy, compare it with drug therapy - I learned how to break such a big task into smaller parts Slide 6: Resources - Used reliable resources to start with - Psychology today: used for understanding how the mind responds to pain - WebMD: used for medical research and definitions - TED talks: the most interesting piece of resource which made me consider different perspectives in ways that chronic pain can be treated - The book was perfect for my research. It was about how neuroplasticity was used to treat chronic pain. Neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to alter its neural connections, very recent discovery, 1960s. - I struggled finding research papers/journals that were relevant to my topic, as neuroscience is a very recent discovery and so I had to read through journals and pick out information that was relevant to my

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topic. While reading journals, if I liked an idea I looked for its source and read on from there. This proved to be the a very useful way of research

Slide 7: Case study, BE BRIEF - He broke his hip and developed chronic pain after several month post accident - Developed his own way of treatment: called the visualisation method - This method was then implemented on another patient and proved to be successful - This method cured many patients of chronic pain - Due to the lack of scientific evidence, it can’t be considered as a valid treatment yet. Slide 8: - A month into my EPQ journey, I realised that I need to set myself personal deadlines - This table belongs to the previous plan that was later disregarded - At the end of december, I realised I was being overly ambitious and unrealistic with my deadlines - I didn’t factor my other responsibilities that might make these deadlines hard to achieve. Like my mocks and revision. Slide 9: - The conclusion I reached with my research was that in order for psychotherapy to become valid it needs more scientific evidence and education of physicians who will be able to determine if psychotherapy is suited for their patients (individual differences). - Individual difference is key: 2 different patients: ○ Both suffering from chronic pain for 5 years, one is motivated the other one isn’t. ○ The one who’s motivated will be more open and willing to try psychotherapy and they’re brain will not be occupied with thoughts like ‘oh this is useless’ ‘nothing else worked, why would this?’, this is what the patient who is unmotivated to get better will go through. This will prevent them from fully focusing on the task. Slide 10: Slide 11 Slide 12: - If I had the opportunity I would conduct a research project to provide scientific evidence that psychotherapy is effective. - Perhaps something I could do at university -

This project also made me realise how interested I am in neuroscience and I am very eager to pursue this as a career...