Beach Reading - A Book on Pain
I'm a nerd. Last winter when we vacationed on a beach, I read a book on pain management. I had recently attended a lecture on it and wanted to better understand how I could help my patients manage their pain through massage.
Is Zero Pain Attainable?
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Last fall at the AMTA National Convention I attended a class taught by Chester “Trip” Buckenmaier III, MD, Colonel, U.S. Army (Retired).
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He is the program director and principal investigator for the Uniformed Services University’s (USU) Defense & Veterans Center for Integrative Pain Management (DVCIPM) under the department of Military Emergency Medicine.
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He issued a call to massage therapists to enter the healthcare world as part of the solution to pain management. With the looming opiod epidemic, the medical world is looking for alternatives.
He said that we need to evaluate how we think about pain. Maybe we can not eliminate pain, but we need to manage it. Rather than measuring pain on a numerical scale, we need to measure how pain affects four areas of life: activity, sleep, mood, and stress. The pain may remain the same, however if the patient can function in these four areas, there is success and pain is managed.
He explained that as an anesthesiologist he could drop someone to zero pain, however they would be on the floor drooling and unable to do anything. That is unacceptable for daily life. There is a difference between someone who has a pain level 7 and is unable to function and someone with a pain level 7 who can sleep and function within their pain. They are managing their pain.
Massage therapy can be part of managing the pain. We can complement what their doctor is prescribing. Massage can easily be combined with other pain management methods, including drugs. Drugs have their place, but we need to find ways to minimize them.
He said that we need to evaluate how we think about pain. Maybe we can not eliminate pain, but we need to manage it. Rather than measuring pain on a numerical scale, we need to measure how pain affects four areas of life: activity, sleep, mood, and stress. The pain may remain the same, however if the patient can function in these four areas, there is success and pain is managed.
He explained that as an anesthesiologist he could drop someone to zero pain, however they would be on the floor drooling and unable to do anything. That is unacceptable for daily life. There is a difference between someone who has a pain level 7 and is unable to function and someone with a pain level 7 who can sleep and function within their pain. They are managing their pain.
Massage therapy can be part of managing the pain. We can complement what their doctor is prescribing. Massage can easily be combined with other pain management methods, including drugs. Drugs have their place, but we need to find ways to minimize them.
Recent Research on Pain management
Pain is a major public health concern, significantly affecting the quality of life of approximately 100 million Americans.
The Samueli Institute, commissioned by the Massage Therapy Foundation with support from AMTA, conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of published science on massage and pain. This systematic review and meta-analysis is the first to rigorously assess the quality of massage therapy research and evidence for its efficacy and effectiveness in treating pain, function-related and health-related quality of life outcomes for people with various types of surgical pain and anxiety.
Here is a link to the review:
Massage Therapy and Pain Management
The Samueli Institute, commissioned by the Massage Therapy Foundation with support from AMTA, conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of published science on massage and pain. This systematic review and meta-analysis is the first to rigorously assess the quality of massage therapy research and evidence for its efficacy and effectiveness in treating pain, function-related and health-related quality of life outcomes for people with various types of surgical pain and anxiety.
Here is a link to the review:
Massage Therapy and Pain Management
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