Psychological Support Services for the Mind and Body
The team at the Welcome Back Clinic believes the wellness comes from a healthy mind and body. Chronic stress, worries, and frustrations can lead to an increase in pain symptoms, worsen sleep, and decrease our quality of life.
Holistic Treatment
Treating chronic pain effectively involves simultaneously addressing the medical, biomechanical, nutritional and psychological needs of the individual. Physicians often provide the best medical management relating to pharmaceuticals, surgery, and conservative interventions. Biomechanical providers understand the optimal function of joints, ligaments, tendons, muscles, and other structural aspects of the body. Nutritionists provide guidance to heal your body from the inside out. Finally, mental health providers assist with coping skills, stress management, sleep, and pain perception. An improvement in one aspect of your health can have multiple positive benefits to your overall wellness. For example, less stress reactivity can lead to a reduction in muscle tension and pain which can improve sleep quality and duration. Supporting the mind and body simultaneously in treatment is the best way to reverse the cycle of chronic pain and disability.
Acceptance of Pain Speeds Recovery
Recovery from chronic pain rarely involves an absence of symptoms or a “cure.” Often this outcome is simply not possible due to the complex nature of the condition, resistance to treatment, intolerable side effects of medications, or other factors beyond anyone’s control. So what can a person who is suffering with pain do to improve their quality of life and function? People who set goals that are important to them, promote acceptance in their lives, and direct their efforts into activity despite pain report the best outcomes. Sounds great, right? But what about the pain, depression, anxiety, lack of sleep, and all the other things that make even simple tasks unbearable? This cascade of symptoms can make chronic pain conditions seem overwhelming. This is why it is so important to have help while you begin your recovery plan. Setbacks occur and at times it can be hard to keep going. This is the time you will benefit most from a good support system.
Biofeedback, mindfulness meditation, and relaxation therapy can be very useful tools in the treatment of chronic pain and disability. Biofeedback helps an individual to improve their awareness of bodily sensations and to learn to modify their responses at will. Biofeedback devices may be as simple as a tone generator which chimes when heart rate increases as a reminder to breathe deeply. With time and training, you will learn how best to respond when painful symptoms or sleep difficulties occur. Mindfulness meditation is a practice which can assist a person to redefine their relationship with pain and suffering. This technique involves using the power of awareness and present-moment experience to discover alternate ways to cope with distressing symptoms. Flexibility, patience, strength and calm are cultivated through a progressive and consistent daily practice. Relaxation therapy is a simple yet powerful way of promoting sustainable treatment for sleep disturbances and stress. Individuals learn how to use the body’s basic signaling system to promote restful sleep and relief from pain. There are many variations of this therapy which can be used to suit your individual needs.
Assessing Your Progress
Our Professional Support Services team members provide outcome measures at the beginning, middle, and conclusion of your treatment program. Our assessments help the team to better validate and track the progress that you make during your treatment at the Welcome Back Centre. We combine the results from your assessments with a brief structured interview so that we are well informed of how we can best support you to reach your goals. We use industry standard measures that meet acceptable standards for validity and reliability (this means they are the right tests to assess our clients).
Assessment tools
Oswestry Low Back Pain and Disability Questionnaire
The Oswestry Low Back Pain and Disability Questionnaire has been used for over 30 years as an outcome measure for assessing spinal disorders. It has been cited in hundreds of journal articles, textbooks, and databases. This tool is useful for measuring change over time relating and is targeted to individuals who suffer from back pain. Many of the individuals who seek help from our clinic suffer from pain which originates in the spine.
The SF-36 is tool with 8 different scales that measures how a health concern affects a person’s function. The SF-36 is a well established tool for measuring health outcomes relating to both physical and mental functioning. The Progressive Goal Attainment Program (PGAP) Psychosocial questionnaire battery includes the CIEQ-Chr, FFQ-Chr, Disability Index, PHQ-9, and Short-Form McGill Pain Questionnaire. This battery of outcome measures was designed by Dr. Michael Sullivan, a professor and expert in the psychology of pain and disability at McGill University. He developed the PGAP as a means to reduce psychosocial barriers to recovery from injury or disease while helping people to return to activity and function. The overall goal is to improve the quality of life for clients and to assist with return-to-work transition. The PGAP is a 10 week progressive and structured reactivation program for individuals provided in a gradual and supported environment. We take the time to learn about your thoughts and feelings about your health condition so we can best design your program to meet your individual needs. The Welcome Back Centre team works together to provide a comprehensive analysis and treatment plan for your health care needs. We treat the whole person and support a sustainable return to function while improving quality of life for our clients and their families. Welcome Back To Your Life.ROLAND-MORRIS DISABILITY QUESTIONNAIRE
The Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire is another outcome measure that we use to assess the degree of change over time that occurs with treatment at our clinic. This 24 question measure is easy to understand and provides an excellent way for a discussion to occur relating to specific symptoms and the impact that they have on the quality of life of our clients. By repeating this measure over time, we can learn how well an individual is responding to treatment and make changes to support their recovery.
SF-36
PGAP PSYCHOSOCIAL QUESTIONNAIRE BATTERY
COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT AND TREATMENT