September 2019 – Introducing ANTLR…

As many of you know, September is National Pain Awareness month, and this month we’re choosing to concentrate on one of the more debilitating and still poorly understood conditions today: Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS, formerly known as reflex sympathetic dystrophy or RSD.)

NAPM has adapted to the evolving national and international treatment guidelines for CRPS for the past several years. Among other things those guidelines emphasize minimization of drugs (especially the opioid class), a strong focus on rehabilitative therapy, and avoidance of interventional procedures (such as nerve blocks or spinal cord stimulators) unless necessary to facilitate rehabilitative efforts when more conservative approaches have failed.

We are delighted to welcome Kathryn Richardson, MS, OTR/L from Eagle River’s very own FOCUS (Family Outreach Center for Understanding Special Needs) into our community and to partner with her in the Alliance for Neuropathic and Traumatic Limb Rehabilitation (ANTLR).

Kathryn’s background for the past decade included working closely with Dr. Norman Harden at Northwestern University in Chicago, who has been the internationally recognized expert in CRPS for the past two decades. Kathryn was the fifth author on the most recent national clinical practice guidelines (https://academic.oup.com/painmedicine/article/14/2/180/1824419) for the diagnosis and treatment of CRPS and brings unparalleled expertise in treating this debilitating condition along with the closely related issues of phantom limb pain and post-stroke central pain syndrome.

We are excited toprovide world-class and cutting edge treatment for CRPS and related conditions to Alaska, and look forward to even better success with Kathryn in our court!