Effect of Personalized Pain Coaches After Orthopaedic Surgery for Patients With Sports Medicine Injuries

Summary

Patients experiencing sports medicine-related injuries are particularly vulnerable to developing both chronic pain and experiencing prolonged opioid use. This multiarmed randomized controlled trial will quantify the impact of integrating Life Care Specialists, and pain management-focused paraprofessionals, have on increasing access to multimodal pain management approaches and subsequently optimizing both patient-reported pain-related outcomes and objective measures of activity. Life Care Specialists work with patients and clinicians on implementing non-pharmacological pain management approaches, specifically teaching participants how to implement mindfulness-based skills into their recovery, systematically conducting standardized biopsychosocial pain assessments, and coordinating care. By developing a toolbox of pain management approaches with the support of the Life Care Specialist, patients are well positioned to incorporate evidence-based pain management approaches into their recovery that result in improved psychosocial functioning and reduced opioid medication utilization. In total, 150 individuals with sports medicine injuries will be randomized to one of two intervention arms where they will work with a Life Care Specialist in person or over telehealth or receive standard-of-care written postoperative instructions for pain management. Patient-reported outcomes, objective actigraphy movement outcomes captured using wrist-based watches, and opioid utilization captured using medication event monitoring system (MEMS) caps will be evaluated over 3-months postoperatively for a total of 4 study visits.

Conditions

• Sports Medicine Injuries

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

LCS (Life Care Specialist)

The LCS will work with the patient to create a pain management plan focused on behavioral education. The LCS interventions can encompass all, but not limited to, the information included below: * Opioid Risk Education * Therapeutic Intervention * Clinical Pain Coordination

BEHAVIORAL

Standard of Care

Patients will receive the current standard-of-care for pain management in the aftermath of surgery: a standardized prescription protocol, hospital-system approved discharge instructions which provide written instruction on how to taper opioid use, links to written/online resources for opioid misuse, overdose prevention, and State-approved disposal options.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Football League

  collaborator OTHER

• Emory University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Nicholas A Giordano, PhD · Assistant Professor

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

15 Years

Max Age

45 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2023-08-17

Primary Completion

2025-09-19

Completion

2025-09-19

Countries

• United States

Study Locations