FAKS

Board Members

President: Iben Rohde

Vice President: Tobias Tapio Miller Pörsti

Treasurer: Anastasia Shaposhnikova

Health science and international relations: Lars Bye Møller and Sanne Lydø

FAKS – the Danish Association of Chronic Pain Patients was founded in 1990. A group of pain patients brought together in an interdisciplinary pain unit, came up with the idea. The vision was to bring pain patients together in order to inspire and activate each other in various positive ways. Thus, one of the main objectives was to deal with common problems such as physical, mental, and social inactivity.
In FAKS we come together doing various activities physical as well as mental in order to divert our attention from the pain. We have lectures, photography yoga, and mindfullness courses, excoursions to the cinema, theater and amusement parks, just to name a few.
FAKS sets itself aside from other patient groups by being a non-specific- diagnosis-dependent-association. The fact that, pain in many cases become a disease of its own, no matter the initial cause, calls for a different approach. Even though there exists universal problems to chronic pain patients, people and their pain issues are in many ways as different and unique as themselves.

1. Raise awareness and make society acknowledge, that pain is a severe disorder and economic burden, limiting the quality of life, and therefore pain relief should be a top priority of the health care system.

2. Continuously advocate our issue and influence politicians, social and healthcare workers by keeping an open dialog about chronic pain and pain treatment.

3. Continuously gain knowledge and provide information to chronic pain patients on the subject of chronic pain and management.

4. Create a social network for chronic pain patients and their relatives, allowing room for the individual no matter what diagnosis.

5. Acknowledge that chronic pain also puts great strain on family and relatives, thus aiming to provide a space, where they too can interact and exchange knowledge.

6. Provide guidance and coping strategies for chronic pain patients, stimulating them to take control of their pain and live an active life after all.

When first joining with Pain Alliance Europe- PAE, we did not know what to expect. To be honest, we had a hard time imagining what could come of joining a European NGO. However, this year, we are hosting the general assembly as well as the SIP here in Copenhagen.
We realize that PAE could be the very tool we need to change the lacking standards of modern pain treatment in Denmark as well as in the rest of Europe. Being a relatively small NGO in Denmark, It is difficult to make ourselves heard. First of all, we need to make our decision makers realize that, we even have a problem. We hope that PAE can change this fact. We hope that all of us coming together as one voice can put pressure on our governments to make the right decisions in the years to come.