Date of Award

Spring 5-7-2021

Document Type

DNP Project

Project Team Faculty Member

Dr. Kevin Stein

Project Team Faculty Member

Dr. Adam Schneider

Project Team Faculty Member

Dr. Joseph Grazaitis

Keywords

Chronic low back pain, migraine headaches, radiofrequency ablation, greater occipital nerve blocks, sphenopalatine blocks, botox injections.

Abstract

Keywords

Chronic low back pain, migraine headaches, radiofrequency ablation, greater occipital nerve blocks, sphenopalatine blocks, botox injections.

Abstract 

Chronic low back pain and migraine headaches affect millions of adults in the United States. Traditionally, opioid and non-opioid pain medications were the mainstay pharmacological treatment of choice. However, due to the highly addictive nature of opioids, practitioners are seeking alternatives for pain management.  Radiofrequency ablation (RFA), a minimally invasive technique has been shown to alleviate chronic back pain while botox injections and other non-invasive opioid sparing techniques, such as greater occipital nerve blocks and sphenopalatine blocks have been found to be effective in the treatment of migraine headaches. A critical access hospital in rural Illinois that offers these interventions proposed the creation of an educational presentation for referring practitioners and patient pamphlets in order to increase awareness of minimally invasive opioid-sparing interventions available at the pain clinic. A presentation for healthcare workers, including primary care providers, ER Physicians, and surgeons was held. Following the presentation, a survey was administered. The results shows that the majority of referring practitioners (81.8%, n=11) are more likely to refer patients to the pain clinic and distribute the pamphlets to patients after attending the presentation. The patient educational pamphlets were also adopted by the hospital’s media department for mass production and distribution.

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