Multidisciplinary Pain Management: Complex Cases

There are many reasons why healthcare providers choose not to manage pain, or unknowingly undertreat pain, including fear of addiction or overdose, litigation, and difficult personality types. Mostly practitioners undertreat because of a lack of knowledge, understanding, and confidence to manage such an elusive diagnosis. Have you ever asked yourself Which medication and why? Do I need an opioid agreement to prescribe hydrocodone? What about addiction? Which complementary treatment approaches are available to my patient and which ones does the evidence support? Is there anything else that I can try other than an opioid? What about behavioral management? How can my mental health colleagues help with pain management, and how do I suggest this to my patient? Improving the clinician’s knowledge and skills will help demystify and reduce the fear associated with managing such a subjective and otherwise challenging diagnosis. This timely lecture will focus on the importance of managing pain in the biopsychosocial model from a multidisciplinary perspective. In this case based learning presentation, we will be reviewing complex case studies on common, otherwise challenging-to-manage pain syndromes including chronic low back pain, postherpetic neuralgia, and diabetic peripheral neuropathy. Focus will be placed on educating the audience about pain physiology, pharmacology, interventional management, and complementary treatment modalities. Cases will be evaluated from a multidisciplinary perspective. (Recorded at PAINWeek 2018)