Evidence-Based Approaches to Chronic Pain Management: Time to Reconsider the Benefit of Technophilism?

Americans are obsessed with all that is technical, yet technologically-focused approaches to chronic pain management are not necessarily the most effective approaches. Despite their perceived promise, unimodal approaches such as medications, surgery, spinal cord stimulation, intrathecal opioid pumps, and various other interventional approaches are not necessarily the most effective ways to treat chronic pain. Primary care physicians, when overwhelmed by these patients, are apt to refer them either to interventionalists or surgeons prematurely, resulting in myriad unnecessary injections and surgeries--with iatrogenic complications associated with both. This presentation will emphasize the potential benefits of considering referral of patients with chronic pain to physiatrists--who are the pain specialists with the broadest armamentaria for treating the biopsychosocial complexities of these conditions.