Updates to Chronic Pain Guides Herald Shift to Biopsychosocial Model, Expert Says

The California Division of Workers’ Compensation’s proposed updates to its chronic pain treatment guidelines signal a shift away from surgery and interventional treatments and toward functional restoration and the biopsychosocial pain model, a leading pain specialist in the state said. “It is now understood that (the) classic biomedical approach (pursuit of a pathoanatomical diagnosis with the view of targeting and treating a specific ‘pain generator’) is incomplete,” the introduction to the proposed guidelines reads. “Its exclusive application c...