Veterans Deserve More Than Opioids

The debt we owe America’s servicemen and women is immense. At a minimum, our injured warriors deserve the finest healthcare we can muster, and sometimes that requires Veterans Affairs to think “outside the box.”

There was a recent study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine and summarized in a Medical News Today article by Robby Berman with the following headline: Veterans Benefit from Pain Treatment Without Drugs.

The study analyzed returning service members with chronic pain (primarily from joints, back and neck, muscles or bone) who did not receive nonpharmacological treatments (NPTs) while in the military health system, and compared them to those service members who did receive NPTs.

The NPTs included:

Acupuncture;
Biofeedback;
Dry needling;
Massage;
Chiropractic care;
Exercise therapy;
Lumbar support;
Heat treatment;
Spinal manipulation;
Cold laser therapy.

As you might expect, the presence of NPTs reduced the likelihood of veterans experiencing depression, drug abuse and addiction.

Esther Meerwijk, PhD, the study leader, was quoted as follows: “We may be seeing a genuine effect of nondrug therapies that occurs regardless of whether soldiers use opioids or not. If nondrug treatments make chronic pain more bearable, people may be more likely to have positive experiences in life. That makes them less likely to have thoughts of suicide or to turn to drugs.”

This kind of “outside the box” thinking can also be applied to injured workers to help them do better.

Call us. We can do better.

William Faris, JD
Chief Executive Officer
502-495-5040
william.faris@omca.biz
www.omca.biz

Posted in News