Chronic Pain and Workers’ Compensation in New York

While acute pain is a normal sensation triggered in the nervous system to alert you to possible injury and the need to take care of yourself, chronic pain is different. Chronic pain persists. Pain signals keep firing in the nervous system for weeks, months, even years. There may have been an initial mishap -- sprained back, serious infection, or there may be an ongoing cause of pain -- arthritis, cancer, ear infection, but some people suffer chronic pain in the absence of any past injury or evidence of body damage. Many chronic pain conditions affect older adults. Common chronic pain complaints include headache, low back pain, cancer pain, arthritis pain, neurogenic pain (pain resulting from damage to the peripheral nerves or to the central nervous system itself), psychogenic pain (pain not due to past disease or injury or any visible sign of damage inside or outside the nervous system).

Medications, acupuncture, local electrical stimulation, and brain stimulation, as well as surgery, are some treatments for chronic pain. Some physicians use placebos, which in some cases has resulted in a lessening or elimination of pain. Psychotherapy, relaxation and medication therapies, biofeedback, and behavior modification may also be employed to treat chronic pain.

Many people with chronic pain can be helped if they understand all the causes of pain and the many and varied steps that can be taken to undo what chronic pain has done. Scientists believe that advances in neuroscience will lead to more and better treatments for chronic pain in the years to come.

Source: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, NIH

Behavioral Medicine Associates provides psychological services for no-fault / workers' compensation cases including psychological evaluation of disability, psychological treatment of the injured worker, and cognitive-behavioral therapy for management of chronic pain. We have offices in the five boroughs of New York City, (Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx, and Staten Island), Long Island (Nassau and Suffolk counties) and upstate New York (Westchester country). Injured workers with some of the following conditions are treated at Behavioral Medicine Associates: anxiety disorders (post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder, and specific phobias) depression, and chronic pain.