According to the American Pain Foundation, pain affects more Americans each year than diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and cancer combined. It is the leading reason why patients visit their physician.
Yet pain is often inadequately treated. A survey from the National Institutes of Health found that 60 percent of pain patients experience breakthrough pain that severely impacts their quality of life, which likely wouldn’t happen if their pain was adequately controlled.
These web pages explore the reasons why pain is under-treated and what you can do to assure that your patients have proper pain management.