Our
treatment approach
Pacifica staff endeavors to work
closely with the medical community
treating the chronic pain patient
who attends our pain management
program. We attempt to contact
the attending physician by telephone
to discuss our evaluation results
and any treatment plan we intend
to implement. Our report of initial
evaluation is sent to the referring
physician and/or nurse care manager
and our discharge summary is
also directed towards them at
completion of the program. In
addition, we are happy to receive
telephone consultations to facilitate
the care and recovery of chronic
pain patients from their syndrome.
Nurse case managers occasionally attend
our weekly case conference with
our entire team to discuss progress
and other issues.
At Pacifica our approach does
not involve dangerous interventions.
For over a quarter of a century, Pacifica and
St. Helena Hospital have worked
together to provide specialized
and intensive treatment of complex
pain syndromes in a medically
supervised in-patient and out-patient
residential setting. Our program
has many physicians, psychologists, therapists and
others working together to develop an individualized
program of care in order to create
a narcotic free pain management program optimized
for functional restoration, addressing the needs
of pain, depression, addiction and other debilitating
conditions ideally suited for alternative pain manatement
and pain relief therapies..
Pain is a normal part of life.
When it persists and becomes
unmanageable and leads to
a chronic pain syndrome,
special treatment in an organized
pain management program is
sometimes necessary. Pacifica
and St. Helena Hospital work
together to provide specialized
evaluation and pain program
treatment of difficult, complex
pain syndromes which have
not responded to conventional
and aggressive medical pain management treatment.
Since it is unlikely that
medical science can currently
"cure" most chronic pain problems,
our treatments are aimed
at providing pain sufferers
with safe and effective treatments
that facilitates the body's
normal healing process. This
can include correct medications,
skills, techniques, education,
functions, and abilities
while undergoing stabilization
in a safe and secluded environment.
We emphasize competencies in
knowing and applying specific
pain reduction techniques. This
can include adaptation, detoxification,
confrontation, acceptance, understanding,
pain reduction, stress control,
strengthening, pattern development
and non-narcotic medication.
Our programs are effective because
patients are away from their
usual environment allowing a
total focus on getting healthy.
While curing or entirely eliminating
pain would be wonderful, with
effective management, it is not
necessary to eliminate pain to
be restored to health and better
functioning without the need
for narcotics, which in many instances actually can increase pain.
Our approach entails complete, round-the-clock management in our comprehensive program which takes place in a serene and supervised environment. Our emphasis is on improving patient competencies in knowing and applying specific pain reduction, distraction and confrontation techniques in addition to appropriate medications, and physical rehabilitation. Our focus is on adaptation to pain rather than escape from pain. The role of the doctor, hospital, and medications is slowly replaced by sound judgment, confidence, and balance in using new and old techniques to manage the pain experience effectively and with less disability. Patients nearly always feel better with this approach and typically report less pain.
We encourage patients to work toward discovering small positive effects and use them frequently rather than looking for one complete answer or "magic bullet" that stops pain altogether. The quest for complete pain cure is both costly and can be dangerous.
As time passes in the program, our patient's pain moderates and they slowly regain elements of their health and prepare for their return to their home environment. Our family and occupational therapist and others assist in the transition home and our year of follow-up begins. At the completion of the intensive program patients are typically much improved but often they remain "fragile" and require continuity with their patient group and the Pacifica treatment team.
Each patient has regular and often daily visits with psychologists, exercise physiologists, aquatic therapists, family therapists, stress management and biofeedback therapists, chemical dependency counselors, pain management specialists, massage therapists, and other specialists as needed.
At Pacifica, we consider chronic pain syndromes most effectively treated with non-acute methods. Using acute treatments (eg., rest, drugs, blocks, surgery) repeatedly over long periods of time risks creating more problems than they solve.
Our approach to treating intractable and severe chronic pain syndromes involves methods from medical rehabilitation. Regarding prescription medications, in place of addictive medications and interventions, we work with safer categories of drugs such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory, anti-depressants, anti-convulsants, various channel blockers and several other non-addicting categories of medications. Our whole approach, however, is to avoid prescription medications altogether by using safer powerful, non-drug techniques.
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