HELP is a patient and disease specific Interdisciplinary Pain Rehabilitation Program (IPRP) in which curriculums are designed to help you achieve your goals. Traditional medical treatments attempt to assist patients by focusing exclusively on the cause of a symptom, trying to eliminate that symptom by curing the underlying disease. This is a helpful approach when a cure is available, but falls short when incurable consequences happen. Patients with chronic pain have often tried multiple cures only to find those treatments unsuccessful. The failure of curative treatment combines with the consequences of pain which often include a lost job, financial problems, strained relationships, and threatened divorce. Interdisciplinary treatment at HELP incorporates the best of curative treatments, but goes far beyond by focusing on the consequences of pain over time. We start with examining what you have lost and what you want to get back in your life. During the program, our treatment staff works closely with you to identify goals in many aspects of life (family, vocational, social, recreational, physical, inspirational, sexual, etc.), with the advice and counsel of your physicians, family members and important others.

HELP curriculum areas:

Life Skills takes direct action by investigating important life roles, relationships and activities. We know by experience that pain takes a toll on theses roles. While initially many of those around us may seem understanding and supportive, over time the consequences of unrelenting pain affect even the best of relationships. Most of our patients tell us that regaining these precious parts of their life is what is most important. We assist our patients in identifying ways to regain control of their life and help guide them in accomplishing their social, vocational and recreational goals.

Functional Activities takes up where Life Skills leaves off by taking these important life activities and simulating them under the supervision of our professional staff of physical therapists and trainers. Each activity becomes a goal and each goal can be broken down into component objectives that are defined and pursued on a weekly basis. Our rehabilitative staff will instruct you in how to safely perform tasks that will allow resumption of your important goal activities and roles.

Fitness builds on the discoveries made in Functional Activities (FA) to establish safe and effective exercise programs to facilitate the weekly objectives from FA. Patients build individual exercise programs for strength and flexibility that provide endurance for the important activities you need to perform in order to reach your goals.

Medical treatment is the foundation for all HELP activities.  We believe a clear concise knowledge of your pain and why you have pain is essential for successful treatment. Many patients have shared with us just how essential this knowledge of their body, their injury, their mind, and the integration of these, is to their healing. Patients uniformly increase their capacity to manage variations in pain when they understand those variations to be safe. Reducing fear and illuminating what their pain means provides a foundation for building new strength and capacity in the healthy tissues that remain in the body. Patients who benefit from medications learn to use them optimally, while patients who wish to become independent of medications are assisted with that goal. Medication optimization combined with educational lectures provides patients with the tools and skills needed to achieve their goals.

Psychological treatment compliments rehabilitative treatment by teaching proven strategies for managing pain. This critical integration of mind and body allows patients to understand how to use this most important and powerful part of themselves. Instruction and practice in relaxation, communication, and cognitive strategies are woven into the fabric of healing at HELP. By utilizing the power of their own mind, patients learn to control pain aggravations and resume important life roles and activities.

Nutrition Class teaches patients how what they eat determines how their body works. Patients learn about healthy eating habits and ways to include these habits in everyday life.

Inspiration integrates the mind, body and spirit through humor, stories, and personal experiences. Pain causes all of us to journey away from our usual social and recreational experiences to a strange world surrounded by nurses, therapists, and doctors. We go to doctors’ appointments and treatments instead of dates or events. Inspiration begins every day at HELP, providing a reintroduction of important parts of joy into our lives.