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in collaboration with
Dr. Marc Lévêque (Neurosurgery – Pain)
Medical validation:
February 17, 2023
In order to improve the management of patients suffering from chronic pain, the French National Authority for Health (HAS) has published a new “guide” enabling a personalized response to be provided to each patient.
Chronic pain, defined as pain that persists or recurs for more than 3 months, affects more than 12 million French people. If it deeply affects the quality of life of people who suffer from it, it is still poorly supported today. In this context, HAS, in partnership with the College of General Medicine and the French Society for the Study and Treatment of Pain, recommends a health pathway for people suffering from chronic pain, graduated in three levels and coordinated by the doctor. treating.
Three-level care, centered on the patient’s needs
Concretely, this course will be organized around three levels, in response to the patient’s situation.
Primary and secondary healthcare professionals in town thus constitute the first level of management of chronic pain.
“The attending physician is responsible for this course.“, specifies the press release.
Next comes the second level of support.
The patient is sent either to a “Chronic pain treatment assessment consultation“, or to a service hospital specialized according to the type of chronic pain (for example in neurology for chronic headache or neuropathic pain, in rheumatology for chronic musculoskeletal pain, etc.).
Finally, in the event of a complex situation, patients are referred to a “Center for the assessment and treatment of chronic pain for a multidisciplinary consultation meeting, an additional assessment or a specific technical procedure that can only be performed in level 3, or hospitalization“, notes the press release.
The HAS specifies that whatever the level of care, the attending physician must continue to monitor his patients in order to ensure the coordination of care.
“an announcement effect”
But for Marc Lévêque, neurosurgeon and author of the book “Free ourselves from pain”, “This guide is an announcement effect. It is obvious that it is necessary to prioritize the request, and this personalized care is necessary, because only 3% of patients have access to centers specializing in pain. However, the faster we take care of patients, the more we can provide an effective solution to their problems..”
“These are therefore common sense recommendations, but it is then necessary to have the means to implement them.“, details the expert. “In the same logic, we have developed a tool, ALGOMETRA, which offers patients a kind of “queue-skipping”: before the consultation, they will fill out a questionnaire on pain, and based on this photograph, we will offer them an expedited appointment with a specialist“, concludes the expert.