pain management therapy is a branch of medicine that is devoted to the study and treatment of pain. It is a multidisciplinary approach that attempts to balance pain relief with the need for long-term treatment or rehabilitation. This can include pharmacotherapy, psychotherapy, biopsychosocial treatments, and surgical interventions.
This article will explain what causes pain, and how it can affect someone’s life both physically and emotionally, as well as offer some suggestions on how best to treat it.
Pain management therapy is a huge topic that has important implications for people who experience persistent or intense chronic pain not caused by cancer or another definable disease process.
Benefits of pain management therapy:
- Prolongs benefits of treatment
Pain management therapy can help to prolong the benefits of other medical treatments to promote recovery, improved function, and reduced disability.
- Reduces barriers to return to work
If pain is causing difficulties with daily activities, pain management therapy can help people regain their functioning and increase their participation in activities at work and home.
- Reduces opioid medication use
Pain management therapy reduces the need for opioids by helping people adjust behavior that could trigger intense pain into more tolerable levels. This can include behavior modification and counseling about coping strategies for managing pain or doing something else instead that is less painful or pleasurable (such as reading or watching TV).
- Improves quality of life and reduces disability
Regular pain management therapy may help people to work, remain active, and manage their lives more effectively. This can include changes in pain treatment by providers, a better understanding of pain and how to manage it (such as whether it is normal or abnormal), more adaptive strategies for coping with chronic pain, and strategies that can be used to prevent worsening (such as avoiding triggers such as exercise).
- Treats depression and anxiety
Pain management therapy for chronic pain can be effective in treating depression or anxiety that may have developed from the illness. Its effectiveness in this regard lends further support for using psychotherapy with people who experience difficult-to-treat chronic pain.
- Improves quality of sleep
Pain management therapy can reduce the effects of pain on sleep. This includes using techniques for managing pain or avoiding things that trigger increased pain or using techniques to improve sleep that is effective in randomized clinical trials (such as cognitive behavioral therapy and relaxation training).
Conclusion
Pain management therapy is an interdisciplinary approach to help the patient develop skills that enable the patient to gain control of their pain to function at their best. It may include exercise, psychological counseling, biofeedback, and medications such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and opioids.
