Chronic Pain

The Pain Management Rehabilitation Services offer chronic pain sufferers a multi-disciplinary approach to pain control that is tailored to each patient’s individual needs.

Typically, patients have lived with chronic pain for a number of years and have been treated and medicated by several physicians. Many have become dependent on medications and have acquired a constellation of disabling symptoms that are eroding the quality of their lives.

The focus of the Pain Management Program is on treating not just the symptoms, but the whole person. The program’s goals are to diagnose the pain syndrome, reduce the subjective experience of pain, assist with medication management, improve the individual’s ability to control pain, and improve physical and emotional functioning.

The program treats patients with all types of chronic pain, including:

• Back pain/Sciatica (learn more about pain management for back pain at MedStar Spine Center)

• Cervical (neck) pain
• Failed back syndrome
• Reflex sympathetic dystrophy
• Myofascial pain

• Fibromyalgia

• Facial pain
• Other neuropathic pain
• Headaches (including migraine)

• Cancer pain (learn more about pain management for cancer pain)

• Pain of shingles (herpes zoster / post herpetic neuralgia)
• Pelvic pain
• Central pain syndromes (from spinal cord/injury, stroke, multiple sclerosis, etc.)
• Phantom limb pain

All treatments are tailored to meet individual needs. Our services are based on the biopsychosocial model of pain intervention and benefit from a multi-disciplinary approach. These include:

• Independent comprehensive evaluation
• Medical evaluation
• Rehabilitative evaluation
• Functional capacity assessment
• ADA Disability determination
• Vocational assessment
• Psychological evaluations
• Medical and pharmacologic management
• Neural blockade (spinal cord stimulators, pumps)
• Radiofrequency lesioning
• Physical therapy and conditioning
• Occupational therapy
• Cognitive behavioral therapy
• Biofeedback
• Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS)
• Acupuncture and acupressure
• Relaxation and stress management training
• Individual and group therapy programs
• Patient educational programs
• Spinal injection techniques - precise applications of steroids or other indication to the spine under X-ray (fluoroscope) guidance
• Joint applications of steroids
• Diagnostic procedures of the spine including discography and intradiscal electrothermal annuloplasty (IDET)
• Spinal implantation of advanced pain management devices (spinal cord stimulators and infusion pumps)

The Pain Management Program’s highly trained physicians are board-certified in Physiatry or Pain Management. Unlike other facilities, the Pain Management Program’s medical and therapeutic teams draw on the vast resources and expertise of the MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital, Suburban Hospital Healthcare System, and The Center for Pain Management. They lead multidisciplinary teams of specialists in diagnosing and treating patients with an individualized, practical course of intervention that has been demonstrated to be clinically effective and efficient. An optimal treatment plan is created for each patient at the initial evaluation. Depending on the patient’s needs and the referral, a multi-disciplinary approach may be used, taking full advantage of the center’s experienced staff. The treatment plan may include medical and pharmacological intervention, along with a series of neural blockades followed by intense physical therapy, combined with cognitive and behavioral therapy, biofeedback, and acupuncture.