Characteristics of the Patients with Pain in Rehabilitation Medicine Outpatient Practice

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: The purposes of this study are to find out the characteristics of patients with pain in outpatient practice of rehabilitation medicine and to provide basic data for outpatient management. METHOD: We surveyed a hundred one outpatient practices with questionnaire including the distribution of diagnosis, pain site, disease related with pain, pain treatment method, etc. RESULTS: 1) Distribution of diagnosis was traumatic brain injury (TBI) 10.5%, stroke 14.8%, spinal cord injury (SCI) 10.8%, musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) 55.8% and others 8.1% in training hospital, and TBI 6.7%, stroke 10.6%, SCI 14.0%, MSD 58.7% and others 10.0% in non-training general hospital, and TBI 2.6%, stroke 4.9%, SCI 2.9%, MSD 78.3% and others 11.3% in private clinic. 2) The most common site of pain was low back area. 3) The most common disease related with pain was myofascial pain syndrome. 4) Trigger point injection and physical therapy were performed for pain treatment in most of outpatient practice, whereas local injection and nerve block were less used. CONCLUSION: We believe that this study's results will provide helpful basic-data for management of outpatient with pain.