Chronic Pain Treatment

Chronic pain is pain that persists for more than 3 months or pain that lasts longer than the expected timeframe after an injury or an illness. Chronic pain is often associated with a pattern of recurrence over months or years, or with a chronic pathological process. The pain is also associated with significant and reliable impairment of functional status, which can occur in the relative absence of physical findings. Additionally, chronic pain is largely associated with psychosocial difficulties. The pain typically responds inadequately to appropriate medical, physical, or psychological care. Thus, when it has been established that a patient's chronic pain is of a non-malignant nature, the shift in focus must change from absolute cure to effective management.

Evidence indicates that patients with chronic pain conditions who participated in interdisciplinary programs emphasizing the principles of functional restoration, self-management, and cognitive behavioral intervention consistently demonstrate marked and meaningful improvements in pain levels, activity levels, psychological functioning, return to work, healthcare utilization, and reduction in opioid medication. There is substantial evidence indicating that these gains are also maintained over time. Programs that have individualized, flexible treatment plans with a focus on goal attainment exhibit the best outcomes.

Interdisciplinary pain management involves medical management with rehabilitation therapy, psychological and behavioural therapy, education, vocational rehabilitation, and intervention from other disciplines as deemed appropriate to a specific patient.

Studies indicate that, out of many chronic pain sufferers, 60-100% are satisfied with mobilization and manipulation therapy. Behavioural and cognitive-behavioural therapy proves to be quite effective as well, especially for patients willing to accept and adapt to the chronic pain rehabilitation program rather than continuing to search for a cure.  The psychological treatment will be conducted by a registered Psychotherapist.

In many chronic pain cases, full recovery (total pain alleviation) is not possible. In those cases, the goal of our treatment team is palliation; making the pain and related symptoms less severe so that affected individuals can remain productive in life's activities. It is strongly believed that at this juncture, this treatment is now reasonable and necessary and that this patient must be afforded the opportunity to participate in this treatment in order to address the identified impairments and reasonably reach maximal medical recovery. Active and passive therapy will be provided and/or supervised by the Chiropractor scheduled at the time of the patient visit.