Published: June 02, 2008 04:33 pm            

HRH staff says managing aches and pains is truly a team effort

DANVILLE — There may be an ‘i’ in pain, but physicians and physical therapists at Hendricks Regional Health are well aware that they cannot spell wellness without “we.”

It’s in that spirit that anesthesiologist Dr. Tom Hawk and Director of Physical Therapy Shane Sommers maintain a constant line of communication to ensure that patients suffering from acute and chronic pain are receiving the best possible care.

“Pain is multifactoral,” Hawk explained. “It affects not just the injury, but how a person responds to it. Some people need to do less and some people need to do more.”

The severity of an individual’s pain and his or her own personal threshold for dealing with that pain is often what determines the best course of action.

Patients will often start in physical therapy where many injuries can be treated with therapeutic rehabilitation and regimented stretching and strengthening programs.

Sommers says that the two most common chronic injuries that his department encounters are in the neck and lower back.

“Back and neck pain can affect your work, your sleep, and it can be pretty detrimental to you,” he said. “Posture is a huge thing and education is really something people need to focus on because it’s typically bad habits that generate neck and back injuries.”

Sometimes pain reaches a level of severity where rehabilitation therapies cannot be handled effectively. Enter Dr. Hawk.

Physicians have the option to refer their patients to Hawk and his partner, Dr. Steve Ward, who may be able to offer not only oral medication, but also a series of injections into the areas around the spine that will help to block some of that pain.

“The healing process takes time,” Hawk explained. “But it’s difficult to perform an adequate therapeutic session if the patient is constantly hurting, and that’s where pain management starts to come in.”

There are several options for patients who enter into this injection therapy. An epidural injection of tissue deposits or low dose steroids can be targeted at an area above the lumbar to alleviate inflammation and caused by such chronic injuries as a herniated disk. Other options include the insertion of a catheter which can carry medications along the spinal cord. Hawk even alluded to a facet joint injection in which a heated needle can be used to essentially singe troublesome nerves in the spinal cord.

Hawk said that the average relief time for injection therapy is between 10 and 14 days and because some do contain steroids, redosing options are limited.

“We’re basically trying to get someone to a place where we can manage pain acutely and if you can get them through those first couple months [of rehabilitation] you can help get them to a healing point,” Hawk said.

He added that the fact that HRH has a physical therapy center on-site has allowed for much more fluid communication between the two wellness entities.

“People ask where they should go for physical therapy and of course they always have an option, but I prefer that they come here because when they do their information is entered into our computer system and I know exactly what they are doing,” Hawk explained. “Communication is really the most helpful component.”

For more information on Hendricks Regional Health and pain management options, visit the website at www.hendricksregional.org.

brian.kern@flyergroup.com

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.