- September 26, 2019
My name is Syed Zaffer and I’m a physiatrist here at Florida Orthopaedic Institute. I’m board-certified in physical medicine rehabilitation and a board-certified in electro-diagnostic medicine and fellowship-trained in the same specialty. My role here at Florida Orthopaedic Institute is to see patients with acute and subacute pain, postoperative pain, as well as doing electro-diagnostic medicine, which is testing nerve and muscle disorders for patients with injuries and disorders. When patients come in with pain the physiatric approach is a holistic approach. When we look at a patient, I will look at the pain history, try to determine what’s been done so that we don’t reinvent the wheel, and then give them options on the most safe and effective way of treating their pain. That basically helps to empower the patient and making decisions of their own. In addition, it also educates them on the different options available that a non-opioid or maybe nonpharmacological interventions for pain. By doing so, it helps them really think about what’s available and what would be the most appropriate option for them.
As physiatrists, we are really looking at improving the quality of life. So we relate being to how they function and not just the numbers. It’s 0 to 10 as it being scale. And educating the patient how to evaluate their pain to best inculcate the treatments that are available. It really helps them take control of the pain and also helps them cope with the pain. So the conditions that commonly present to me are patients who are having certain types of nerve and muscle injuries and those could be almost far from risk drop or a foot drop or result of a nerve being compressed in the spine. Either could be the neck or the low back. Patients who come in with pain related to osteoarthritis in the knee, the hip or the back. Patients who present with specific nerve-related conditions like neuropathy related diabetes, certain conditions which make the patients more susceptible to pain as well. Then there are conditions our patients come in more for reflex sympathetic dystrophy. That’s autonomic system disorder. And then there is post-op pain, which is a large, large portion of what I see here at Florida Orthopaedic Institute. The patients usually may or may not have had traditional interventions like physical therapy and occupational therapy for they come in. All the times they’ve come in just with pain medications and surprisingly a lot of opioids on board.
What we recommend is very specific focused physical therapy programs. With my background physiatry that’s a clear advantage to be able to tell them exactly or tell the therapist what exactly they need as a program. And that could be either a combination of physical, occupational therapy, massage and acupuncture along with that and chiropractic treatments. We like to give all the options available. And surprisingly, some patients say, I want to start with acupuncture. And more often than not, sometimes they’ll come say, we did get some relief and want to keep trying that. And then we will decide if we need to add certain other interventions to the acupuncture to help them with the pain. So that really helps to give controlled patient decision making, which is really, really a big thing for chronic pain patients or acute or chronic pain patients cause they really lose control of the decision making. And, and depression is big in this patient population. And having to give them back that control is a huge thing in patient management. It’s really rewarding to be able to sit with patients, talk to them about different options, be with them till the end in terms of helping with their pain.