Investment Info

Let’s assume we could talk the health insurance industry into paying for treatment focussed on the patient and not on the profitability of the hospitals and the pharmaceutical industry. What would a pain management department look like and how would it treat its patients? First off, it would concentrate all its energies on two quite different functions. Before you can identify the best treatment for a patient, you must diagnose the underlying cause of the pain. The most experienced diagnosticians in the hospital or clinic must therefore work on each patient, using whatever reasonable tests are necessary to reach a reliable diagnosis. The second function is to switch the emphasis on the types of treatment made available. At present, hospitals are run for profit and so base all their treatment decisions on what generates the most profit. In other countries, there is an evidence-based approach. Researchers identify which treatments are the most cost-effective for relieving the patient’s problem and only those treatments are used regardless of the level of profitability. Read the rest of this entry »

For these purposes, we need to start off with a basic definition. Pain is nothing more than a message sent by the affected part of your body to the brain saying you are injured. It’s useful when it first alerts you to an injury or disease. It’s a problem in its own right when it will not shut down and let you get on with your life. Doctors distinguish between two types of pain: acute pain is where an injury or illness can be cured so the pain will slowly fade as the treatment of the cause takes effect, and chronic pain where the injury or disorder will continue to cause you pain over a long period of time. It’s not so hard to remain optimistic and positive when the pain is acute. You know you will get better. It’s a different psychological battle when the pain is chronic. This is life-changing and many people react by feeling some degree of depression. Read the rest of this entry »