By Ashok Gupta, PT, DPT, Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder, TheraNow
Twitter: @realtheranow
The COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 presidential election dominated the public sphere throughout 2020 and 2021; justifiably so considering the impact each has had on our lifestyle, health, culture, and emotions. Unfortunately, the sustained—and in many cases, compounded—nature of each has meant that concerns that were front-and-center pre-pandemic have slipped from the forefront.
One such concern is opioid abuse. Despite the attention it has captured in the past, the opioid epidemic has fallen to the wayside over the course of the pandemic. This doesn’t mean it hasn’t persisted, however. In fact, it’s grown. The CDC reported recently that more than 87,000 American lives were lost to drug overdose—including more than 64,000 from opioid overdose—over the 12-month period ending September 2020. That’s more deaths than in any single year since the opioid epidemic first made headlines in the 1990s.
Any avoidable death is a tragedy, so it’s important to examine the causes behind any uptick in opioid abuse and overdoses. Which leads to the question of what, exactly, drove spikes in opioid dependency, abuse, and overdose over the course of the pandemic.
An experience many have had since the onset of the pandemic is a pervasive sense of anxiety around everyday actions that we previously took for granted. Going to the store suddenly became a roll of the dice as to whether you’d get infected. Meeting up with friends could potentially result in hospitalization. Entering any situation requiring close contact—such as a doctor’s appointment or physical therapy session—could be a potential death sentence.
As such, many opted to defer these interactions or avoid them entirely, utilizing opioid painkillers as a stop-gap solution and pinning their hopes on a relatively quick end to the pandemic—a conclusion we have yet to see.
Regardless of whether this return to normal eventuates, we still must deal with the anxieties that are sure to linger on post-pandemic. Which leaves us with identifying alternate ways to address the conditions that are deterring people from accessing the treatments they need—including pain management. One of the most popular has been telehealth.
Spurred on by the pandemic, telehealth has developed and expanded rapidly in terms of function, accessibility, offering and capabilities. This has resulted in the emergence of multiple platforms that can address many types of health concerns, from general healthcare to mental health to hands-on healthcare capabilities, like physical therapy. It is the latter, tele-rehab, that many experts believe holds the key to combating the opioid epidemic without the associated risk of exposure to the virus.
Tele-rehab does this by increasing access to therapies that treat one of the leading underpinning causes of opioid abuse: chronic pain.
Defined by the CDC as “pain that persists for longer than 12 weeks despite medication or treatment,” chronic pain affects up to 40% of Americans and is most commonly caused by injury. Physicians typically have two primary options from which to choose when deciding on a course of treatment for chronic pain management. The first is pharmaceutical pain management, usually in the form of opioid-based prescription medications. The second is physical therapy, which a growing number of studies are finding to be the most effective form of long-term pain management due to its efficacy and lack of side effects associated with pharmaceuticals. As such, the number of institutions offering PT to chronic pain patients is also growing.
The emergence of telehealth-powered physical therapy has been found to be safe and effective for chronic pain patients. Importantly, it is also convenient—a significant benefit when functionality is severely limited by debilitating pain. Assessments can be undertaken, treatment plans developed and tailored, appointments scheduled, and therapy conducted all via video sessions online or on mobile apps and all without requiring the patient to leave the safety of their home.
Personalization and flexibility are also major advantages of telehealth-powered physical therapy. Patients are empowered to book during late hours and, for those living in remote locations, geographical constraints no longer exist. Additionally, many telehealth physical therapy providers offer apps with tracking capabilities, which puts patients in charge of their health and pain management by allowing them to see different plot points on their journey to recovery. This combination of functionality, accessibility and flexibility make it more likely that patients will stick with long-term physical therapy, instead of opioids, to manage and relieve their pain.
The emergence of telehealth-powered physical therapy means that those suffering from chronic pain no longer have to go through the rigmarole of booking appointments, long-wait times or travel just to see a professional. Now, an entire appointment can be done via video session – accessed online or via a mobile app – which can provide long-term, customized physical therapy to manage and relieve pain. Not only is this a better option for sufferers in the long-term, but in the context of the pandemic it also means that individuals don’t have to risk infection, nor rely on the long-term use of opioid painkillers. While the pandemic has had many negative effects in nearly every aspect of daily life, one area where it’s had a positive impact is the increased accessibility for a range of services.