Pain Management
Pain, a common cause of referral to the physician's office, prevents a
person from having normal function and significantly interferes with
one's quality of life. Pain has many manifestations and many causes.
As such, treatment may vary, depending on the cause. One can
experience pain related to disease of bone, muscle or nerve. Pain can
also be attributed to various disease processes of the brain and
spinal cord. Back pain can be the result of spasm of the
musculoskeletal system, from herniated discs of the spinal column, due
to trauma, or from hereditary and acquired disease processes.
At the New Jersey Neuroscience Institute, we have a team of physicians
devoted to the diagnosis and treatment of multiple acute and chronic
pain syndromes. Our team of physicians and nurses are dedicated to
improving the quality of life of those patients we treat, helping them
return to a functional and productive existence. Our team of
neurosurgeons, neurologists, neurosurgical nurses and psychologists
work closely with other pertinent services offered at the medical
center, including, but not limited to, physical and occupational
rehabilitation, anesthesiology, neuroimaging and the electrophysiology
laboratory.
Treatment options offered include medical therapy, surgical
intervention, invasive and non-invasive pain management techniques
(soft tissue manipulation, trigger point injections, botox injection
for pain secondary to muscular spasm, verteplasty, Gamma Knife
radiosurgery for trigeminal neuralgia and epidural and direct nerve
injections) and alternative methods including biofeedback and
acupuncture.
Along with the Division of Neuro-Oncology, we have brought together a
group of medical specialists trained to diagnosis and treat
cancer-related pain syndromes. These include acute and chronic pain
syndromes associated with systemic cancers (breast, lung, prostate,
etc.) and their therapy (chemotherapy, radiation and surgery). The
pain may be from direct invasion of a cancer, from spread to a distant
site of the body (usually bone), or from involvement of spinal cord or
nerve (epidural and leptomeningeal disease). The various therapies for
the treatment of the malignancy may also result in many and varied
pain syndromes, including neuropathies, plexopathies, phantom pain and
radiation-induced syndromes. The same diagnostic and treatment options
previously referred to are available to our patients with
cancer-related pain syndromes, including the use of patient-controlled
anesthesia.
One of the biggest barriers to effective malignant and non-malignant
pain management is patient and physician education with regard to
narcotic medications. In the correct clinical setting and for the
right patient, narcotic medication for acute and chronic pain
management may be an appropriate choice. Being placed on a narcotic
medication does not make one a drug addict, nor does it mean, in the
cancer patient, that one is near death.
The patient and physician must work together in a trusting
relationship to combat one's complaint of pain and suffering, whether
or not the decision to progress to the use of narcotic medications
occurs. An important part of pain management is patient education with
regard to causes of the pain, as well as knowledge of treatment
options. The patient should be an active member of the team, taking
control in treating their own pain syndrome, which, in turn, helps
their overall sense of well being.
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