Pain

Pain, from whatever cause, can be difficult to control, especially as patients’ memory of how pain has progressed can be inaccurate. The ‘Keele Pain Recorder’ app, developed by Dr John Bedson, provides an opportunity for patients to record their pain levels on their phone, so that this can inform future consultations with real data. It is available from the app store and Google Play. A video of this app is below.

Back pain is one of the conditions included in The Manage Your Health app, created by Keele University, the West Midlands Academic Health Science Network and Stoke-on-Trent CCG which is free to download, has useful information which patients can have on their smartphone. Here is a video of a patient being advised to use the app for back pain in a GP’s surgery.

The app includes links to NHS : Home, which has advice about exercises for the patient to do, in order to recover as quickly as possible. The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy also has advice on its website. Together with suitable exercises to help manage this pain.

Some other useful tips to reduce pain can be found here.

And descriptions by patients of their experiences with pain management clinics can be seen here.

Patients may be reviewed by video consultation, such as Skype, where appropriate. See more information about Skype in ‘TECS in Use’

You may want to use Facebook to promote health messages about managing pain, by recording your own video advice, or adding a video produced by someone else, such as here.