Pain Rehabilitation Program

What to Expect with the IU Health Pain Rehabilitation Program

At IU Health, we bring together experts across several specialties to address your chronic pain. Our 3-week intensive outpatient program is offered at IU Health Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis.

We take a whole-person approach to your chronic pain. That means during the program, you’ll have access to several treatments, including:

• Pain psychology treatment
• Psychotherapy
• Physical and occupational therapy
• Medication optimization and consultation
• Complementary therapies including yoga, massage, and spiritual counseling
• Multidisciplinary case consultation and recommendations

You are an important member of your pain team. This program wants you to take an active role in your pain care. If you are participating in the program, you’ll be expected to attend each day of the program so that you can experience its full benefits.

What is chronic pain?

Chronic pain is pain that continues past the time expected for an injury to heal or an illness to end, usually about three months.

Chronic pain may affect a specific part of the body, as in chronic low back pain, headaches, or facial pain. It can also involve different regions of the body at once, such as fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis or peripheral neuropathies. There are some types of pain without any known cause.

Having chronic pain in one region of the body puts you at risk for developing chronic pain other places later.

Who could benefit from the Pain Rehabilitation Program?

Many people living with chronic pain develop difficulty functioning in daily life. This may include poor sleep, physical decline, muscle tension, inflammation, emotional changes and difficulties at work or school. When this happens, pain is no longer a symptom but an illness itself.

One reason people come to our program is because finding effective treatment can be difficult and frustrating. Chronic pain is complex and typical forms of treatment, such as medications, injections or surgeries may not provide complete relief. Many people with chronic pain have already tried several different treatment options only to be disappointed by the lack of lasting pain relief. Pain rehabilitation offers a different approach to living well with chronic pain.

This program may be right for you if you answer “Yes” to any of these questions:

• Is my life focused on pain and what I am not able to do rather than what I am able to do despite of the pain?
• Are my doctors telling me there is nothing further they can do to relieve the pain?
• Am I concerned about the long-term effects of taking pain medications?
• Are my doctors telling me that I need to do more on my own to manage pain?
• Is my family’s well-being affected because of my chronic pain?
• Is my recovery from injury or illness taking much longer than my doctors or I expected?
• Am I not able to commit to social events with family or friends because of my pain?

Program Goals

At our program, we want to improve your functioning and increase your quality of life if you live with chronic pain. We do this by emphasizing holistic wellness.

Some of our goals include:

• Increasing daily activity
• Building physical strength, stamina and flexibility
• Balancing medications with other approaches to treating pain
• Learning stress relief through a variety of techniques
• Returning to work or other important activities

Our Approach

We offer a variety of treatments and therapies to help each person achieve their individual goals. Our program includes:

Physical Therapy & Occupational Therapy

Your physical therapy program will consist of 1-hour sessions 2-3 times a week for the duration of the 3-week program.

You will be evaluated by a physical therapist before starting the program. We will develop a program for your needs. Your sessions will be a blend of one-on-one and group, self-directed exercises.

Occupational therapy focuses on your ability to complete daily activities and will be led in a group setting. Our goal is to teach techniques to help you gain back control over daily activities.

Psychological Treatment for Pain

Many people who face chronic pain also face depression, anxiety or other mental health conditions. We use research-based treatments to help individuals with chronic pain. Our psychology group education and therapy sessions are an essential component of treatment. Group therapy is focused on how thoughts, feelings and behaviors impact life with chronic pain.

Group therapy sessions topics include:

• Positive pain coping
• Communication
• Cycle of chronic pain
• Adapting to change
• Hurt versus harm
• Social impact of pain

Medication Optimization and Consultation

Medications have been an important part of the treatment plan for many people with chronic pain. While we recognize the significant role of medications in treating pain, we emphasize that medications are only one part of a complete plan for pain management.

Our nurse practitioner will meet with each person at least once during the program to work on a personalized plan of care. We will help you understand your medications as part of a greater plan to improve functioning and make recommendations for additional imaging, lab work or interventions.

Complementary Treatments

We also use complementary therapies to address the several ways chronic pain has negatively affected your wellbeing. These may include:

• Nutrition groups led by a registered dietician
• Meditation groups with a certified yoga instructor
• Music therapy with a music therapist
• Spiritual counseling led by an IU Health chaplain
• Massage by a licensed massage therapist

Aftercare Planning

Our goal is that every patient completes the program with skills and strategies to use in their home environment. We offer a group dedicated to discharge planning every week to ensure that while learning, you are also preparing for the end of the program. After you graduate the program, you are invited to attend our monthly support group as well as schedule individual pain psychology follow-up sessions.