Addressing a Stealth Pandemic Workshop– reframing depression, anxiety, chronic pain, PTSD and fatigue as disorders of overprotection, and implications for prevention and management.
Date: 16 October 2025
Time: 1630-1830
Venue: City Rooms 1&2, Adelaide Convention Centre
Registration: Complimentary
Time: 1630-1830
Venue: City Rooms 1&2, Adelaide Convention Centre
Registration: Complimentary
Overview:
The ‘Stealth Pandemic’ refers to the immense and collective burden that chronic pain, depression, PTSD, anxiety and fatigue exert on our health systems, our communities, Defence and Veterans in particular, and society in general. These are ‘stealth’ conditions insofar as they are ‘invisible’ and their common driving mechanisms have thus far flown under the radar. They are in ‘pandemic’ proportions in prevalence, disability burden, economic impact, and force capability risk. They are on many metrics, the most pressing health issues of our time.
Professor Lorimer Moseley
Professors Moseley & Hutchinson will argue that these conditions are all characterised by particular unpleasant and often distressing feelings, and that these feelings have clear and critical adaptive functions during an emergency, but great negative impact when they persist beyond their optimal adaptive window, when they can be considered ‘disorders of overprotection’. Recent scientific developments have identified common biological pathways and predisposing, modifying and therapeutic factors. These developments also raise the strong possibility of developing bio, psycho and social markers of overprotection, which will in turn allow a precision health approach to preventing and overcoming these chronic overprotection disorders.
Finally, Moseley & Hutchinson will focus on chronic pain to describe an approach that targets modifiable contributors to overprotection. Grounded in contemporary pain science education and skills training, social connection and inclusion strategies, and the Sweet Zone of positive adaptation, the approach aims at prevention of, and recovery from, chronic pain and related ‘overprotective disorders’.
Professor Lorimer Moseley AO is an internationally renowned pain scientist and science communicator. He has published 440 scientific articles and eight books, given keynote presentations at world conferences in eight fields, and received honours or awards from government or professional societies in 18 countries. Treatments he developed for chronic pain are implemented internationally, for example across the UK’s National Health Service and the USA’s Veterans Affairs. In 2020 he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia, for distinguished service to the fields of pain and its management, science communication, education and physiotherapy, to humanity at large.
Professor Mark Hutchinson
Professor Mark Hutchinson is a national science leader and an internationally recognised researcher in neuroimmune signalling. As the Director of the Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing (IPAS) at the University of Adelaide, he leads complex multidisciplinary teams to deliver innovation and real-world impact. His work has transformed the understanding of how non-neuronal cells in the nervous system modulate immune responses in the brain and spinal cord, creating new insights into chronic pain and addiction. Professor Hutchinson has secured over $83M in research funding, published more than 250 articles, and is ranked in the top 1% of authors in his field. He is a member of the Prime Minister’s National Science and Technology Council and has driven the translation of 12 technologies and the creation of 19 spin-out companies, creating more than $500M in market value.
