Dr. Howard Weiss, Brooks Medical Director, discusses pain management for post-acute rehabilitation patients
Clinical ExpertiseFeb 21, 2020
Brooks is excited to introduce a new video series featuring our physicians from across our system of care dispelling myths and explaining the true science behind each of their specialties.
Our first video features Medical Director Dr. Howard Weiss, explaining the importance of pain management and the role it places in post-acute rehabilitation.
Video Transcript
Hi. I’m Dr. Weiss. I work here at Brooks Rehab Hospital. I’m a board certified physiatrist, a specialist in the field of physical medicine rehabilitation. Nice to meet you.
Pain rehabilitation is a holistic approach to a patient with pain. Not just looking at the cause of their pain, but looking at what pain causes to the whole human body as far as not being able to work, not able to take part in family activities. So a pain rehabilitation would be an overall approach, that holistic approach, and that would take a whole team of people to help. Not just the physician myself, but physical therapists, occupational therapists, psychologists. It’s really, really important to get all of them integrated together, and if you have people that understand pain, and all these team members understand it, we can really have patients have successes.
I’m passionate about pain management, pain rehabilitation, because I’ve seen what it can do to patients. I’ve seen what chronic pain can do, and it’s terrible to watch that. As a physiatrist, our job is to restore function, is to take patients with disabilities and not look at the disability, look at their ability.
I’m proud of Brooks because it’s allowed me to do what I do. I can kind of work towards the best treatment for the patient. We’re not staying with the same stuff all the time, we’re always upgrading, we’re always looking for more education. And I think education is the key to success, so if you continue to do that, we can keep improving people’s lives and changing it.
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Check out the other videos in our physician series!