Interventional pain management focused on zygapophysial joint pain: current landscape and future perspectives.

Abstract

Chronic pain is one of the main health problems in the world. But managing chronic pain poses special challenges for healthcare. While interventional pain management - especially when focused on zygapophysial joint pain - have been shown to be able to improve health-related quality of life in a cost-effective manner, many European countries have focused on the bio-psychosocial model and pain rehabilitation programs where the general practitioners in primary care gets a subordinate role instead of the leading role they should have. Based on the experience from pain management during the last two decades in Sweden, a program is suggested based on primary care and controlled by the general practitioners and where interventional pain management is integrated early in the process.