P-123 - Shoulder Pain Management for Patients: A Mobile Application for Interventional Pain Options

Abstract Title: Shoulder Pain Management for Patients: A Mobile Application for Interventional Pain Options


Background: Creating and distributing a chronic pain management app will empower patients with the knowledge to explore non-surgical solutions to manage their chronic shoulder pain.

Purpose/Objectives: Chronic shoulder pain affects up to 14% of the global population. The shoulder joint, with its complex interaction of bones, cartilage, tendons, muscles, and ligaments, is the most mobile joint in the body. This mobility can also lead to injury—which can lead to chronic pain that interferes with routines, work, sleep, and wellbeing. Conservative therapies treat acute pain, but do not effectively treat chronic shoulder pain. Surgery also has limitations with treating chronic shoulder pain.

There are effective non-surgical interventional pain management techniques that can decrease chronic shoulder pain and improve the patient’s quality of life; but patients and their healthcare providers are often unaware of these treatments. Prolotherapy, platelet rich plasma injection, shoulder nerve blocks, corticosteroid injections, and electro-neuromodulation can all improve certain types of chronic shoulder pain. By designing a patient-centered application, we can inform patients regarding these treatment options.


Methods: This patient-centered application, will be designed using PEMAT criteria, providing understandable explanations for technical terms. It will be developed for multiple app platforms reach a wider audience. The user interface will prioritize inclusivity and clarity by incorporating accessibility features. To promote learning, it will feature interactive elements, such as videos, infographics, and animations to explain complex medical concepts.

The application’s additional goal will be to help people understand their pain and express that pain to their healthcare providers. We will help users explore different pain scales, such as the SPADI, that qualify and quantify the ways that shoulder pain interferes with their lives. We will encourage users to set goals and monitor their progress toward improved function and decreased pain. If users choose to share this deidentified data, we will be able to track the app’s positive effect in patient’s lives.

The medical information included in this app will be regularly reviewed for accuracy and relevance by chronic pain experts and will be updated as the science evolves. While the initial development will focus on shoulder pain, future development of this app will explore non-surgical interventional pain management techniques for other common chronic pain regions.


Results: While there are chronic pain treatment applications oriented toward healthcare professionals, to our knowledge, there is no patient-centered application of this nature available to patients. All information used in app development was developed through a systematic literature review regarding the pathophysiology of and non-surgical intervention strategies for chronic shoulder pain.

By simplifying medical information into accessible, user-friendly content, this application is poised to enhance awareness of treatment options. This should generate significant demand for nonsurgical interventional pain management. Anesthesia professionals have the opportunity to provide these life-improving services to their neighbors in need, who would seek these treatment options if only they knew about them. As Dorothea Orem championed: patients can be empowered through education to assume responsibility for their own self-care and health promotion.

Conclusions/Implications for future research and/or clinical care: These interventions decrease pain and improve function for patients with hemiplegic shoulder pain, adhesive capsulitis, rheumatoid arthritis, rotator cuff tendinopathy, and generalized chronic shoulder pain. Certain treatments work better for certain causes of chronic shoulder pain, but all treatments improve pain compared to placebo treatments. While many of these techniques are not new, ongoing research is identifying the best way to utilize these treatments. This chronic pain management application can serve as a catalyst to further that research and lead to new developments in chronic pain management, This also opens additional avenues of research into the use of patient-centered digital tools to improve patient’s lives.


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