I was very pleased to be asked to speak at the Adcock Ingram Sports Science & Rehabilitation division launch roadshow — a whistle-stop tour of South Africa.
Innovative TensCare CEO Neil Wright asked me whether I would give a series of talks in South Africa (Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town). He had heard that I bring an ‘edge’ to the topic of pain. I like to think so, but only in terms of challenging out-dated thinking that holds us back. What a great opportunity, I thought. A chance to spread important messages via Understand Pain (UP) and to learn about how chronic and complex pain is addressed in South Africa.
The new Adcock Ingram division was being launched to local physiotherapists, chiropractors and biokineticists, and the theme of the events was pain. How could I resist? Adcock Ingram are engaging with therapists and clinicians in a new way that is generating a great deal of excitement. This is based on creating great relationships and distributing high quality products that compliment rehabilitation, including the range of devices from TensCare.
Both the team putting on the roadshow and the attendees were buzzing! The feedback from the people in the audience was very positive. There was a thirst for quality pain education, and it would be great to follow up with full Pain Coach workshops.
TensCare and TENS
TensCare is an employee owned company, distributing TENS and electrotherapy machines all over the world. One of the main reasons to use TENS is for pain relief, in both acute and chronic pain. It is probably best known and most used in maternity care.
In my experience, TENS is under-used for chronic pain. Whilst TENS will not solve the problem, it can offer relief that helps the journey forwards. As an inexpensive and simple form of self-treatment, it is a good option. The key is that the user understands how it works and how to best use the unit. This can take some time and practice, but with instruction, discovering the right parameters can be found more swiftly.
I shared the stage with Nick Martichenko from Canada. Nick spoke about the use of tape and the understood mechanisms, whilst I focused on pain and pain coaching. I entitled the session ‘The Challenge of Pain’ as a doff of the hat to Pat Wall, the founder of modern pain biology, who wrote a book of that name. It was Wall’s work that resulted in the development of the TENS machine.
Three days, three events
On the road…
The roadshow put on by Adcock Ingram was very high quality from start to finish. They really wanted to make sure that every detail was covered. This was appreciated by the attendees who were most enthusiastic about the event. There was a new precedent being set, and the beginning of a new engagement between Adcock Ingram and therapists/clinicians.
I was particularly impressed by the way that the sales team approached their work. Selected and led by Juan Schaerer and Sheila Keshav, this group has come together in a short period of time. There was a great deal of positivity within the team, supporting each other, and getting jobs done from start to finish. I was privileged to be able to hear some the individual stories about how they came to join the team.
From a pain education perspective the roadshow was a great opportunity to talk about ways in which we can help people understand their pain and move on to improve their lives. That’s the purpose of UP. I hope that everyone else enjoyed their time as much I did. This was a super start and I will be very interested to learn how this story unfolds.
RS
understand pain 