Medical Massage Therapy, combined with Diagnostic Based Pain Assessments, are Highly Effective Tools for Chronic Pain Management.
Why do I need to conduct a Diagnostic Based Pain Assessment for treating Chronic Pain with Medical Massage? As part of a Comprehensive Pain Assessment, Diagnostic Testing, when combined with Medical Massage Therapy, can be a highly effective tool for Chronic Pain Management.
Can Medical Massage treat Chronic Pain effectively without a Diagnostic Based Pain Assessment? Without a Diagnostic Testing based Pain Assessment, the Massage Therapist can only guess and make assumptions at what the appropriate Chronic Pain Treatment Plan for a patient should be.
Is the Pain Assessment the same thing as a Diagnosis? Although it uses Diagnostic Testing, a Pain Assessment is not the same thing as a Diagnosis. A diagnosis is made by a Doctor and is used to specifically identify an illness, disease, or medical condition. A Diagnostic Pain Assessment is a compilation of information that is gathered and evaluated in order to derive an appropriate plan of treatment.
How do Pain Assessments differ for different Body Parts? Different parts of the body require different types of Pain Assessments. The Diagnostics Testing for Fibromyalgia may use all of the Diagnostic Tests that were used for Lower Back Pain or Shoulder Pain or Elbow Pain, yet the individualized Diagnostic Test for Lower Back Pain or Shoulder Pain or Elbow Pain are quite different.
What kind of Information is used in the Pain Assessment? The assessment information that is used to develop a treatment plan includes the patient’s Pain Scale, their Medical History, an objective observation of symptoms, biomechanical (analysis of posture, and body locomotion) diagnostic testing, and palpation (analyzing soft tissue by feel).
I’ve never heard of a Pain Scale before, can you please explain that to me? As part of the Assessment, the patient is given pictures of the human body and is asked to list the specific pain levels on the pictures that give the representation of the patients pain. The Pain Scale is defined as the amount of pain that a person is experiencing in a specific part of the persons body on a scale of 0 to 10. Zero is no pain, and 10 is un bearable pain. 1-4= functional, 5-7=extreme discomfort and difficulty with functionality, 8-9=pain so great that the person is bed-ridden.
How does Medical History affect the Pain Assessment? The historical factors effecting a person’s pain, such as the medications that the person is taking, the time of day when the pain is at its worst, what forms of treatment has helped the patient, and what forms of treatment have not helped the patient, helps the health practitioner to better understand the root cause of a patient’s pain.
What does Observation have to do with the Assessment? The observation of an externally rotated foot can indicate a leg length difference that could have a factor on Lower Back Pain. The trained eye can observe a Forward Shoulder rotation, which can reveal posterior Shoulder Pain as well as Thoracic Back Pain. A Gait Analysis can reveal a limp or favoritism of a limb. The observation of an externally rotated foot can indicate a leg length difference that could have a factor on Lower Back Pain. You might never reveal a limp or favoritism of a limb without a Gait Analysis. So as you can see, observations of a patients symptoms are a very important part of the Pain Assessment.
I’ve never heard of a Biomechanical Testing before, can you please explain that to me? The analysis of body motion and movement within identifiable specific planes of that motion and movement is an important part of Biomechanical Testing. Range of Motion Testing including AROM-Active Range of Motion, PROM-Passive range of Motion, Resistive and other special tests, are critical Diagnostic Pain Assessment tests that help to uncover root causes of Chronic Pain.
What is Palpation and what does it involve? Palpation is the analysis of soft tissue by feel and is an important part of the information gathering process. Texture, temperature, and tone are important factors that let the practitioner know the health of the soft tissues that are involved with a persons chronic pain. The Joint Mobility Test is a critically important diagnostic Palpation test that is used to determine whether or not the spinal column is a chronic pain syndrome contributor.
A Diagnostic Based Pain Assessment enables a systematic approach to Chronic Pain Management. An organized Diagnostic based Pain Assessment is the first critical and mandatory step in systematically developing a divide and conquer treatment strategy for the reduction and possible elimination of chronic pain. It is one of the factors that determines the ability and skill of clinical and medical massage therapists to provide patients with new hope, strategies and tactics in the battle against chronic pain.