Dr. Daniel Sova, explains the multidisciplinary Pediatric Chronic Pain Management Program, a unique collaboration of providers from Johns Hopkins and Kennedy Krieger Institute offering pain rehabilitation for children and teens. Pain management options range from intensive inpatient to flexible outpatient care, adjustable to fit each patient’s needs.
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Hello. My name is Dr Daniel Sova and I'm in the department of physical medicine and rehabilitation. And today I want to talk a little bit about. One of our unique programs that exist, which is a multidisciplinary pediatric chronic pain management program. And the reason that this program exists is because there's a strong partnership between the johns Hopkins Hospital and Kennedy Krieger Institute and this pediatric pain rehab program is really multifaceted. Number one, there's a multidisciplinary pediatric pain management clinic, which I'll talk about in a little bit more detail shortly. Number two is the comfort ability program. And this was really invented in boston Children's Hospital and we were lucky to bring it over to here as well. And this is a program, a workshop that exists both for parents slash caregivers and patients which teaches them chronic pain management skills. And it's really a crash course in chronic pain management skills and it's highly invaluable for both patients and caregivers to learn these skills. Number two, number sorry. Number three is our out patient program which consists of physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech and language pathology, behavioral psychology, psychiatry social work. We provide a large facet of outpatient therapy programs. Number four is our specialized transition program or STP program which is it for patients who need more intensive services than outpatient therapies will provide. It's a day program where patients come every single day five days a week to get daily therapies. But every single night they're going home. What's unique to our program is we also have an inpatient rehab program. So patients who need even more intensive services three hours a day of therapy of physical therapy, occupational therapy, behavioral psychology, neuropsychology, et cetera. They come to our inpatient program which has therapies, you know 5-6 days a week and they're staying over in the hospital as well. The usual average length of stay is about 4-6 weeks for these patients. Um and finally for patients that need any interventions, any injections in the back and joints, etcetera. We also provide that as part of our program as well. And in a multidisciplinary pediatric pain clinic, there are a lot of different providers which consists of a pain physician, nurse, nurse practitioner, child psychiatrist, pediatric behavioral psychologist, pediatric physical therapist, social worker and a registered nurse. And the way that our pediatric pain clinic works is it's usually a three hours of initial evaluation and it consists of a two team evaluation team. Number one consists of the physical therapist, nurse practitioner and pain physician team. Number two consists of a psychiatrist, behavioral psychologist and social worker. And each team is individually meeting with both the patient and caregivers. Both teams come together to come up with it. You know, have a team discussion and discuss the appropriate plan of care for that individual patient. Once that appropriate plan is finalized, we all come in together as a team to meet with both the patient and family slash caregivers to discuss the plan in detail and to provide the opportunity for both patients and caregivers to ask any questions about that plan that was provided. If you have any questions about this clinic or any interest at all, please feel free to reach out to our clinic will be more than happy to assist and answer any of your questions.