by Carolyn Noel, PAINS Webmaster
Soldiers heading home from Afghanistan – Photo Courtesy of US Army
As a veteran who lives with chronic pain, I have a heightened interest in what the DoD and VA are doing to help military personnel and veterans living with pain. The philosopher John Dewey once said, “a problem well put is half solved.” So many of us know there’s a problem–we see the evidence of it or have experienced it ourselves, but the scientists and scholars tell us this is just anecdotal evidence, not fact.
According to the Pain Medicine News, chronic pain disproportionately affects those who have served or are serving in the military. A report published in June 2014 in JAMA Internal Medicine showed the rate of chronic pain to be 44 percent among members of the U.S. military after combat deployment, compared to 26 percent in the general public.
PASTOR and PROMIS
Since the release of the Pain Management Task Force’s report, Providing a Standardized DoD and VHA Vision and Approach to Pain Management to Optimize the Care for Warriors and their Families, in 2010, the DoD and VA have been making progress in the battle against chronic pain. Most recently, I’ve learned about programs that have been developed–as a result of the Task Force’s work–to collect the data to help not only define the problem, but see what solutions actually work.
The Pain Assessment Screening Tool and Outcomes Registry (PASTOR) is a “0-30 minute survey that produces a comprehensive report of a patient’s chronic pain. According to the Defense & Veterans Center for Integrative Pain Management’s (DVCIPM) website, “PASTOR was developed in response to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) 2010 recommendation for ‘performance measures used to determine the effectiveness of the policy in improving pain care for beneficiaries enrolled in the military health care system.’ “
PASTOR uses tools developed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), known as the Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS), to administer questions in a wide range of pain related areas.
Learn More about PASTOR and PROMISJoint Pain Education Project (JPEP)
It seems simple enough, but in order to tackle the problem of chronic pain in our military and veterans population, we have to first actually understand pain. Education is key!
JPEP is a collaboration between the Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to “develop a standardized pain management curriculum to improve complex patient and provider education and training.”
JPEP aims to standardize the DoD/VHA curriculum, enhance the pain care transition between the two agencies and to ultimately build a new model of pain care.
Someone once said, “If you’ve seen one VA, you’ve seen one VA.” While we often hear about the failures, some are getting it right and we need to help spread the word so that these resources trickle down.
My challenge to veterans and active duty military is to educate yourselves, your families – and especially everyone you come in contact with in the DoD and VA systems about the opportunities for better pain care.
You can learn more about the progress being made by visiting: Defense & Veterans Center for Integrative Pain Management and VHA Pain Management