Suvidha Pain Management - What is Pain Management

What is Pain Management ?

Pain management is a branch of medicine employing an interdisciplinary approach for easing the suffering and improving the quality of life of those living with pain. The typical pain management team includes medical practitioners, clinical psychologists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, nurse practitioners, and clinical nurse specialists. Pain sometimes resolves promptly once the underlying trauma or pathology has healed, and is treated by one practitioner, with drugs such as analgesics and (occasionally) anxiolytics. Effective management of long term pain, however, frequently requires the coordinated efforts of the management team.

Medicine treats injury and pathology to support and speed healing; and treats distressing symptoms such as pain to relieve suffering during treatment and healing. When a painful injury or pathology is resistant to treatment and persists, when pain persists after the injury or pathology has healed, and when medical science cannot identify the cause of pain, the task of medicine is to relieve suffering. Treatment approaches to long term pain include pharmacologic measures, such as analgesics, tricyclic antidepressants and anticonvulsants, interventional procedures, physical therapy, physical exercise, application of ice and/or heat, and psychological measures, such as biofeedback and cognitive behavioral therapy

Medical Specialities

Some practitioners focus more on the pharmacologic management of the patient, while others are very proficient at the interventional management of pain. Over the last several years the number of interventional procedures available for pain has grown. Interventional procedures - typically used for chronic back pain - include: epidural steroid injections, facet joint injections, neurolytic blocks, spinal cord stimulators and intrathecal drug delivery system implants.

Pain management practitioners come from all fields of medicine. In addition to medical practitioners, a pain management team may often benefit from the input of physiotherapists, clinical psychologists and occupational therapists, among others. Together the multidisciplinary team can help create a package of care suitable to the patient.

Most often, pain physicians are fellowship trained board certified anesthesiologists, neurologists, physiatrists or psychiatrists. Palliative care doctors are also specialists in pain management. The American Board of Anesthesiology and the American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation each provide certification for a subspecialty in pain management following fellowship training which is recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties. As the field of pain medicine has grown rapidly, many practitioners have entered the field, some not board certified.[citation needed] Other practitioners lacking a medical fellowship have opted for certification by the American Board of Pain Medicine which does not require post-gradute medical fellowship training and is not recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties.