Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.Medical schools devote too little time to long-term pain and the public looks down on those suffering with it, an Omaha specialist said Friday.
Dr. Kenneth Follett, who is involved in a major study of chronic pain, said it takes a staggering toll that is worsened because the public and medical community tend to minimize it.
Those attitudes are detrimental to treating the long-term misery endured by at least 116 million people in this country, said Follett, chief of neurosurgery at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
Follett, past president of the American Academy of Pain Medicine, was one of 19 panelists who worked on the Institute of Medicine report released this week.
“There's almost a stigma about pain,” Follett said. “Pain is real.”
Follett said the panel met almost monthly beginning in November and also communicated by email and conference calls. The committee's study was mandated by Congress as part of health care reform legislation.
The panelists included physicians, psychologists, researchers and a patient representative and took input from laymen and patient advocacy groups.
Chronic pain can be found in people of all ages and can include headaches, arthritis, lower back pain, cancer pain, diabetic neuropathy (in which the nerves malfunction and generate pain), among other kinds of pain.
The study found that at least $560 billion is spent on pain care and disability days, lost wages and lost productivity caused by chronic pain. “Pain touches so many people,” the professor said.
Despite pain's prevalence and cost to society, Follett said, the panel found that typically only about 10 hours of four-year medical programs are devoted to pain and its treatment.
Many Americans believe people in pain are whiners who are trying to avoid work, get attention or obtain drugs, Follett said. And many Americans think pain medications are dangerous and should be avoided.
“So those attitudes prevent good pain care,” he said.
The panel determined that education of health care professionals needs to improve, as does research about pain. Researchers have generated few new pain medications over the past several years, he said.
Follett said chronic pain typically is that which persists more than three to six months or lasts longer than the normal healing time for an injury or illness.
He said insurance sometimes fails to cover pain-related physical therapy or visits to psychologists, even though such visits might help many people suffering with pain. Long-term pain can cause depression or be caused by it.
The panel recommended that the National Institutes of Health designate an organization to advance pain research. The institutes and other public groups need to collaborate with private companies to move research forward and develop new medications and treatments, the panel said.
Contact the writer: 402-444-1123, rick.ruggles@owh.com
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