Las Vegas Recovery Center Medical Director Mel Pohl focused on the importance of treatment alternatives to opioids for chronic pain in his session, Syndrome Pain and Addiction: Challenges and Controversies. Reviewing the interactions of pain, suffering and addiction as they interface in clients, Pohl underlined how opioids complicate the course of many workers’ compensation cases and are a poor choice as a mainstay for treating chronic pain.
Pohl recommended doctors consider having patients discontinue their use of opioid medications if pain is persistent and function is not improved, and identified key factors that may result in a return to work, in order to optimize positive outcomes with patients who are doing poorly on opioid treatment regimens.
An audio recording and handouts from this session are available for purchase here.
