Pain management is a medical field that involves continuously. While there is an epidemic in the United States with prescription medication and narcotic abuse, there are quite a few pain management aspects which continue to benefit patients markedly. Here are 5 of those evolutionary trends.
1. Technological Advancements-interventional treatments for pain management include multiple types of injections and other pain treatments as well. The equipment available to do these procedures has gotten dramatically better over the last 10 years. For instance, the fluoroscopic images that are possible today are much better than they were a decade ago.
This allows the pain Dr. to be significantly more accurate with needle placement from the better pictures. Along with this, the x-ray machines today are smaller than ever, and other technological equipment has seen improvements also.
For instance, radiofrequency ablation machines can now treat several body areas during the procedure as opposed to the initial ones which only treated one at a time. This saves time and therefore money. Patients will reap the benefit of these improvements every time they evolve.
2. Medical costs-it is unclear what's going to happen the future with regards to medical insurance. It's uncertain whether or not Obama care will become reality. It looks like some of it is going to happen. We're also saying is that insurance companies are trying to minimize their cost of doing business while at the same time increasing premiums.
This is absolutely not a good thing is what happens is procedure start to get reimbursed at lower lower rates or to certain point doctors no longer want to provide them. If a procedure cost as much to provide as one gets reimbursed for it, why would a doctor include that in the option of treatments?
3. Electrical stimulation-as the amount of individuals suffering from chronic pain increases, new options need to become available to help with decreasing pain, especially in patients who have no surgical options remaining. One of these new technologies is spinal cord stimulation, which is a form of neurologic modulation. The electrical stimulation paddle gets placed around the spinal cord and helps to modulate how the patient experiences pain.
A spinal cord stimulator is not going to cure anything, but it does alter the persons experience of pain and reduces it potentially by a lot. People can get a trial implant for 5 to 7 days and see how works before getting the final implant.
4. Multispecialty Comprehensive Approach-what a pain problem is approached from one angle, the treatment plan is often insufficient. Looking at the patient from multiple angles with a multispecialty approach can often allow the patient more options and a better outcome from the combined treatments.
Otherwise, a 1 angle approach may miss out on success. Having a multispecialty approach will take the onus of piecing together the conference approach off of the primary care doctor.
5. Improved Patient Education-over the past decade, there has been an incredible increase in the educational information available to both patients and doctors. This increase has been generated from the Internet along with an improvement in technology.
If the patient can sit in the waiting room of a medical practice and look on a tablet device and read about pain management conditions instead of leafing through a USA Today newspaper, will happen is that they can learn more about pain conditions that they may be facing and also learn better what questions to ask with regards to their issues. So not only is increasing technology beneficial for direct education, is also beneficial for spurring patients to want to understand their disease processes in a more educated fashion.
1. Technological Advancements-interventional treatments for pain management include multiple types of injections and other pain treatments as well. The equipment available to do these procedures has gotten dramatically better over the last 10 years. For instance, the fluoroscopic images that are possible today are much better than they were a decade ago.
This allows the pain Dr. to be significantly more accurate with needle placement from the better pictures. Along with this, the x-ray machines today are smaller than ever, and other technological equipment has seen improvements also.
For instance, radiofrequency ablation machines can now treat several body areas during the procedure as opposed to the initial ones which only treated one at a time. This saves time and therefore money. Patients will reap the benefit of these improvements every time they evolve.
2. Medical costs-it is unclear what's going to happen the future with regards to medical insurance. It's uncertain whether or not Obama care will become reality. It looks like some of it is going to happen. We're also saying is that insurance companies are trying to minimize their cost of doing business while at the same time increasing premiums.
This is absolutely not a good thing is what happens is procedure start to get reimbursed at lower lower rates or to certain point doctors no longer want to provide them. If a procedure cost as much to provide as one gets reimbursed for it, why would a doctor include that in the option of treatments?
3. Electrical stimulation-as the amount of individuals suffering from chronic pain increases, new options need to become available to help with decreasing pain, especially in patients who have no surgical options remaining. One of these new technologies is spinal cord stimulation, which is a form of neurologic modulation. The electrical stimulation paddle gets placed around the spinal cord and helps to modulate how the patient experiences pain.
A spinal cord stimulator is not going to cure anything, but it does alter the persons experience of pain and reduces it potentially by a lot. People can get a trial implant for 5 to 7 days and see how works before getting the final implant.
4. Multispecialty Comprehensive Approach-what a pain problem is approached from one angle, the treatment plan is often insufficient. Looking at the patient from multiple angles with a multispecialty approach can often allow the patient more options and a better outcome from the combined treatments.
Otherwise, a 1 angle approach may miss out on success. Having a multispecialty approach will take the onus of piecing together the conference approach off of the primary care doctor.
5. Improved Patient Education-over the past decade, there has been an incredible increase in the educational information available to both patients and doctors. This increase has been generated from the Internet along with an improvement in technology.
If the patient can sit in the waiting room of a medical practice and look on a tablet device and read about pain management conditions instead of leafing through a USA Today newspaper, will happen is that they can learn more about pain conditions that they may be facing and also learn better what questions to ask with regards to their issues. So not only is increasing technology beneficial for direct education, is also beneficial for spurring patients to want to understand their disease processes in a more educated fashion.
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