CF 131: New Information On 5 Actions To Change Clinical Practice Today we’re going to talk about moving toward being patient-centered. There are 5 actions recommended. What does it even mean? I might just ruffle some feathers here but a damn I do not giveth.
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- focus on the patients’ context and modifiable biopsychosocial factors that influence their pain and disability
- Use education to facilitate active management approaches (targeted exercise therapy, physical activity, and healthy lifestyle habits) thus reducing reliance on passive interventions
- Consider evidence-based surgical procedures only for those with a clear indication and where guideline-based non-surgical approaches have been rigorously adhered to.
- Screen for biopsychosocial factors and health comorbidities. Notice this is #1 on their recommendations. If you’re just getting them in a pop a crack a lack and sending them on without this step, your results are going to be less than you or the patient desires. They say we need to communicate clearly with the patient to identify potential biopsychosocial drivers of the pain and then provide the therapy to fill that gap. These things include pain beliefs, emotional and coping responses to pain, social contest, physical and lifestyle factors and the presence of comorbidities. They recommend using the Orebro Musculoskeletal Pain Questionnaire.
- Embrace patient-centered communication. This one is huge and this is one of the key things we learned in the Fellowship training for the neuromusculoskeletal medicine program. Clinicians should use open and reflective questioning to elicit the patient’s understanding of factors, which include the pain experience (tell me your story), causation beliefs (what do they think is the cause of the pain?), coping (what do you do when the pain increases?), impact (Tell me how your symptoms affect your ability to move and function), concerns (do your symptoms worry you?), beliefs (why do you think you shouldn’t bend/lift, or run?), social factors (tell me about your home life or work life), goals (what are you rgoals?), and expectations. Yes, to an extent, updated research and thinking has us behaving a bit like a psychologist I think. It’s not my favorite stuff. But, when you learn and consider how much pain is held in the brain due to these yellow flag indicators, then you start to realize that pain, certainly chronic pain, cannot just be treated at a peripheral source. You have to address the pain from a central sensitization perspective at least equally or you risk never being able to help these patients.
- Educate beyond words using active learning approaches. doctors have to embrace education as a central part of patient care if we are going to change behavior. We have to dispel myths about pain, imaging findings, and activity engagement (for example, hurt does not equal harm). They say that behavioral learning like exercise therapy can be used to bust myths that are unhelpful. Myths and beliefs that lead to things like fear avoidance.
- Coach towards self-management. A large portion of the chiropractic profession wants and desires patients to depend on them week after week, month after month and that’s just not real world stuff. And it’s not helpful for the patient’s recovery either. We should be empowering patients to engage in exercise, valued activities and a healthy lifestyle with confidence. Can you feel the difference here? “Mary, I know you’re only 35 but you already have some degenerative discs in your neck and I’m so concerned about it. This should be considered urgent and I’m going to need to see you 5 million times for the rest of your life.” Is that helpful or is this helpful? “Mary, I know you read on your rad report here that there is a finding of a degenerative disc in your neck but the truth is, that’s very common and not something you should be concerned with. Certainly not over-concerned with. I actually prefer the word ‘deconditioned’ over ‘degenerative.’ A good percentage of 30-40 year old patients have some mildly deconditioned discs but these rarely ever cause any issues. You’re young, you’re strong, and you’re healthy. We’re going to get everything moving correctly and then I’m going to give you some excellent exercises to really focus on the region and build plenty of support. You’re going to do great.” When you stack those two next to each other, it’s easy to see how harmful one is as opposed to the other more positive, more hopeful one. I got a little side tracked there, the point is, help them take control and self manage. Active amnagement relieves pain and improves function across pain conditions and health comorbidities.
- Address comorbid health factors. They say clinicians should refer for co-care in teh presence of comorbid mental and physical health complaints like high levels of emotional distress, eating disorders, and type 2 diabetes. The authors say they contend that multidisciplinary care needs to be integrated, with consistent messages across the team to prevent care fragmentation and patient distress.
HomeSocial Media Links https://www.facebook.com/chiropracticforward/ Chiropractic Forward Podcast Facebook GROUP https://www.facebook.com/groups/1938461399501889/ Twitter Tweets by Chiro_Forward YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtc-IrhlK19hWlhaOGld76Q iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/chiropractic-forward-podcast-chiropractors-practicing/id1331554445?mt=2 Player FM Link https://player.fm/series/2291021 Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-chiropractic-forward-podcast-chiropractors-practicing-through TuneIn https://tunein.com/podcasts/Health–Wellness-Podcasts/The-Chiropractic-Forward-Podcast-Chiropractors-Pr-p1089415/ About the Author & Host Dr. Jeff Williams – Chiropractor in Amarillo, TX, Chiropractic Advocate, Author, Entrepreneur, Educator, Businessman, Marketer, and Healthcare Blogger & Vlogger Bibliography Caneiro JP, R. E., Baron CJ, et. al., (2020). “It is time to move beyond ‘body region silos’ to manage musculoskeletal pain: five actions to change clinical practice.” Br J Sports Med 54: 435-443.