The majority of pain specialists deliver multimodal pain treatment, which has been shown to be more effective than individual treatments only. Multimodal treatment can be done sequentially (one treatment at a time) or in parallel (combination therapy). However, there are no guidelines for how neuromodulation can be part of this chain (sequential or parallel approaches) and perhaps used earlier on in the treatment of chronic pain, based on the growing strength of the evidence. Candidates for neuromodulation often present with some of the most complex and challenging chronic painful conditions, and it is unrealistic to expect a neuromodulation implant to resolve the many facets of chronic pain, which include not only physical pain, but deconditioning, behavioral comorbidities, and mental health co-morbidities. This session will focus on multimodal pain care in the neuromodulation patient, including adjunctive interventional therapies, medical therapies, and rehabilitation medicine approaches to help optimize neuromodulation outcomes.
Read more...