VIDEO: Increasing access key to improve patient experience with pain management

SAN DIEGO — Finding ways to improve the patient experience, as well as increasing access to the appropriate health care providers, are key to addressing barriers to pain management, according to a speaker.

“There are social and emotional experiences associated with the sensory experience of pain,” Rena Courtney, PhD, a clinical psychologist at Virginia Tech’s Carilion School of Medicine, said in this Healio video from the American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting. “Behavioral pain care plays a huge role in comprehensive pain management.”

According to Courtney, several effective behavioral treatments are available for acute pain, post-surgical pain within a hospital and chronic pain within an outpatient setting.

Those in need of behavioral pain care often experience obstacles to treatment, such as issues related to transportation, stigma and lack of education about chronic pain recovery, she said. However, technological advancements in medicine such as increased availability of telehealth and digital therapeutics aim to close these gaps and streamline a patient’s journey.

“It’s an exciting time to be in the field as we continue to explore different opportunities to decrease barriers to care for behavioral pain medicine and the management of chronic pain,” Courtney added.

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Rena Courtney, PhD can be reached at renacourtney@vt.edu.