Physical Therapy for Chronic Pain Management
Erin Reiff, DPT started at Northwest Return to Work (NWRTW) as a Physical Therapist for our Occupational Rehabilitation program 5 years ago and has recently joined our Chronic Pain Management Program (a non-opioid treatment for people struggling with chronic pain after a work injury) as the leading Physical Therapist.
Learn more about our Chronic Pain Management Program.
Prior to making this change, her responsibilities involved creating tailored exercises for each client depending on the injury. Now Erin’s focus is on allaying a client’s fear of movement and creating a new understanding of pain. “Movement and exercise are the bedrock of strengthening and rehabilitating injuries,” explains Erin. “If you experience pain from an injury, you may feel compelled and even fearful to use that part of your body. As a result, that part can lose strength and mobility, or become stiff, resulting in further pain when used.”
To help with this cyclical chronic pain in stagnation, Erin runs circuit exercises with the Chronic Pain management clients – creating a space and community for people in similar situations to move away from this cycle.
While this is just a small part of the rehabilitation process for Pain Management at NWRTW, the overall purpose of the program is to move clients forward with their lives after experiencing chronic pain. One of the team’s ultimate goals is to educate and empower people to break from the “disability mindset” that can often be found because of these traumatic experiences.
Erin isn’t the only member of this team, she works with Psychologists, Vocational counselors, Occupational Therapists, and Physicians to create a web of support and guidance for the client. For example, if Erin is noticing that a client is experiencing increased pain that seems out of place for their activities, checking in with the rest of her team can reveal that the client could be struggling with personal insecurities which can add significant stress to their life. For example, they may have difficulty with transportation. In this case, NWRTW can offer support (like gasoline vouchers) to cover the cost of transportation to therapy.
Life after a work injury can be complex and specific to each individual, but thanks to the hard work of Erin, and the rest of the Chronic Pain Management Staff at NWRTW, clients can get back to work and back to life.
Please Join Us February 25 and 26, 2022 for our “Explain Pain” Seminar for Providers.
To get more information and register for this event, click on the link below:
You can help overcome the most burdensome non-fatal health condition facing our species – pain.
The essence of Explain Pain is the notion that when people understand pain they hurt less, and there is now ample, reliable and repeated evidence supporting this. Teaching people about the biology of pain has become a well accepted strategy, but in order to do it well you need broad and deep knowledge, combined with the skills to tailor and deliver effective educational interventions. Noigroup Explain Pain courses provide the very latest in pain science education and pain treatment.