Pain mgmt, regenerative medicine: KGMU, RMLIMS make capacity building efforts

The major medical institutions in the state capital are making endeavours in advancing their capacities in pain management, rehabilitation and regenerative therapy.

Both King George’s Medical University and Ram Manohar Lohia Institute of Medical Sciences have been conducting consistent workshops and training programmes for students on this subject, as part of their plans to expand the capabilities of the respective departments.

Dr Anurag Agarwal, pain medicine unit, RMLIMS, described chronic pain as a burden in society. He said, “Advanced interventions in doctors’ practices will ultimately improve the patients’ outcome and quality of life.

“Pain management, rehabilitation therapy, etc are a neglected part of several other disciplines of medicine or surgery – be it cancer treatment, amputations, regenerative surgeries, etc. – chronic pain is a pertinent problem for many.

“Various chronic pain syndromes like trigeminal neuralgia, low back pain, cancer pain, among others require different management treatments.”

At KGMU too, Dr Anil Kumar Gupta, head of the department, physical medicine and rehabilitation echoes the sentiments. Gearing up for a national workshop to be organised in December along with experts from the Association of Pain Physiatrists, Dr Gupta too listed the various positives of rehabilitation therapy and regenerative medicine (regenerative medicine refers to development of new treatments to heal or restore function tissues and organs .that have lost function due to disease or ageing, etc.)

“Regenerative medicine and rehabilitation have become imperative in physiatry, anaesthesiology, orthopaedics, sports medicine, radiology, oncology, and a number of other fields of medical study,” he said.

Dr Gupta further said, “The role of regenerative therapy is swiftly growing in treatment of painful conditions like arthritis, plantar fasciitis, muscular disorders among others. New regenerative therapies are being brought out every day.”

Dr Gupta said that while KGMU has progressed with rehabilitation therapy and pain management, “there is much scope for improvement, and much catching up to do to reach best global standards, which can only happen through exchange of ideas and academic discussions with experts.”