Integrative Methods to Manage Pain

Course Description: Chronic pain affects 50 million people in the US, and 20% worldwide. For years, opiate medications were prescribed to manage pain, with disastrous results for some, including addiction and even death, and relief for others. In light of the deleterious side-effects of opiates, Health and Human Services created the Pain Management Best Practices Inter Agency Task Force for Pain. It promoted a multimodal, multidisciplinary approach combining traditional and integrative medicine to manage pain and encourage research into best practices for pain remediation. Clinicians must become aware of the multifaceted therapies that are recommended by the Task Force to create a patient-centered approach to pain management. This course provides a review of Task Force findings and guidelines to enable clinicians to make informed clinical decisions on how to best manage pain without excessive addictive medications. Current pain theories and mechanisms of central sensitization and gate control theory are reviewed. Outcome measures to document changes in pain and function are described. Complementary and allopathic approaches including biopsychosocial models of pain management, physical, massage and occupational therapy, and alternative medicine approaches such as biofeedback, relaxation, mindfulness, and spiritual methods of pain alleviation are introduced. Clinicians will have a greater selection of tools to help people successfully alleviate pain and improve function and quality of life naturally upon completion of this course.