8 Oct 2024
Matt Gurney
Job Title
Image © methaphum / Adobe Stock
From acute trauma to medical conditions to chronic osteoarthritis (OA), pain is likely a factor for a high proportion of the cases you see every day in practice. This makes the consideration of pain important for every patient, but how do you get your clients on board?
Zero Pain Philosophy exists for the sole intention of improving pain management in veterinary patients by educating and supporting everyone involved in the caregiving of animals – particularly veterinary clinical colleagues.
Read on for some of its recommendations to help guide your clients towards a better understanding of pain management.
“Education around pain management is certainly in the hands of us, as veterinary professionals – it is a true gift to influence animal welfare.”
The Zero Pain Philosophy 2023 Big Pain Survey clearly showed that vet professionals feel that clients have a low understanding of pain (1 = low understanding, 10 = excellent understanding).
This is significant, as one of the key steps to improving pain management is ensuring caregivers are confident spotting and addressing pain in their pets (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Response by vet professionals to the above question in the Zero Pain Philosophy 2023 Big Pain Survey.
The survey also highlighted some misconceptions that caregivers have around pain in their pets, which many vet professionals will no doubt be familiar with.
Caregivers said things such as:
Areas that caregivers may be missing include:
So, where can we start with tackling this? Some good suggestions from survey respondents included creating resources such as videos and infographics that can be shared with pet caregivers. Providing these materials was just one way that vet professionals thought Zero Pain Philosophy could help with caregiver education, alongside educating vet teams – always a crucial first step to ensure everyone feels confident talking about pain.
Our aim at Zero Pain Philosophy is to provide the resources that vet professionals need to ensure analgesic excellence. One suggested approach to help unite the vet team in providing clear care pathways is to set an objective along with clear expected key results. How these objectives are achieved is a decision for the practice team, but some suggestions for inspiration are included in Panel 1.
Objective
● Implement regular pain assessment for chronic pain cases
Key results
● Our vets, nurses and caregivers have a clear understanding of each pet’s level of pain, enabling them to make informed decisions about treatment options
● Pain assessments are recorded in the clinical record to enable continuity of care between care providers
● Caregivers book repeat appointments to enable tracking of the pain management plan
Suggestions for how to action this
● Decide which pain assessment tools are to be used for dogs and cats with chronic pain
● Train the team on use of these tools
● Audit the documentation of pain assessments and reflect on the value provided by this approach – is this helping improve our pain management for those pets?
One frustration that the survey highlighted, and one that many vet professionals will share, is clients who value the advice of unqualified keyboard warriors. This is why it is important to seize the opportunity to educate our caregivers and open the door to being the place that clients turn to for advice. Practice social media channels can be powerful here – especially when used to positive effect by producing educational posts.
The following ideas are examples of pain awareness posts.
Use a before and after video of an older dog who has benefited from analgesia for osteoarthritis.
Within the text of the post, include behaviours that the dog either started or stopped doing that have improved with analgesic treatment.
End the post with a question and then a clear call to action (CTA): “Does this look familiar? Ask your vet about a pain trial today.”
Be prepared when faced with clients requesting a pain trial. See Zero Pain Philosophy’s free pain update.
Canine Arthritis Management offers resources for vet professionals aimed at advancing knowledge of osteoarthritis care.
For more details, visit caninearthritis.co.uk
Source a photo of an older, sleeping cat. Within the text of the post, highlight the behaviours that painful cats often exhibit by using questions. Does your cat sleep more? Can they jump to heights they used to manage easily? Does your cat groom less?
The CTA here is: “If you feel this is your cat, we can help.” With a paid social media advert, you can include a button on the post that directs the client to your website to book an appointment.
Managing pain in cats is well summarised in the International Society of Feline Medicine guidelines, which were recently reviewed in Zero Pain Reflect’s recent article. Scan the QR code for further details.
For more details, visit Sage Journals
This idea can be replicated for dogs and cats, and some statistics can be useful. Use a photo of a pet with dental disease – maybe not the worst mouth ever, which could deter your audience (and flag as sensitive content) – and statistics such as:
● “According to one study, 59% of cats showed signs of dental pain during an oral exam”.
● “80% of dogs have periodontal disease by the time they are 3 years old”.
● “Dogs and cats will continue to eat despite significant dental disease”.
You can choose your own statistics on this and add a CTA such as: “Book now for a free dental check.”
Of course, if your practice is putting efforts into social media, it is also worth ensuring the whole practice team knows that the drive is to capture more pets in pain. Does the client care team know to expect calls about booking these appointments? Do the nurse and vet teams have a unified approach to managing these cases when they present?
It goes back to setting those whole team objectives; success is more likely if everyone knows what is expected and why.
Many excellent resources are available for caregiver education about pain, many of which are also very relevant to our vet teams.
The area of OA care is particularly well supported, with a number of organisations offering free resources.
● International Cat Care.
● Pharmaceutical companies that manufacture licensed analgesics for feline OA.
● Canine Arthritis Management (CAM).
Education around pain management is certainly in the hands of us, as veterinary professionals – it is a true gift to influence animal welfare.
To reach as many caregivers and pets as possible does require effort, but as shown by the suggestions in this article, many ideas exist which are easy to implement.
Importantly, they put the whole veterinary team at the centre of the pain management conversation, with the overall objective of providing analgesic excellence.
Let us know if you action some of the suggestions here by tagging @zeropainphilosophy @vettimesuk @ivapm in your social media posts.
For information about Zero Pain Philosophy and its zero-tolerance approach to pain, visit tinyurl.com/4mkt7968
Sparkes AH, Heiene R, Lascelles BDX et al (2010). ISFM and AAFP consensus guidelines: long-term use of NSAIDs in cats, Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery 12(7): 521-538.
