Advanced Medical Consultants online newsletter for October 2017
October 2017
Exercise Is Medicine What Health Care Workers Should Do Differently When It Comes to Pain
I hope you’re capping off a healthy and active summer. The weather is cooling down, and as I drive to work in the morning, there are more people outside walking and jogging, which I love to see. While the weather has an effect on your activity, nothing affects your everyday movement as much as pain. When you’re in a lot of pain, you don’t have the motivation or energy to do much. I know this because I see it with my patients and have felt it myself. don’t do enough to educate patients about it. We don’t give enough direction. Sometimes, doctors write a prescription or recommend surgery without suggesting lifestyle changes that will help in the long run and prevent the pain from becoming chronic. My shoulder pain will usually go away after I stretch or exercise. Those activities are severely underrated when it comes to pain relief. They won’t fix a herniated disc, but they’ll increase blood flow and relieve soreness and tension. They also improve mood, which helps you deal with the severe pain with greater control. It makes you less likely to resort to drastic measures to ease it. Sometimes, surgery, pain medication, and bed rest are necessary. If you’re experiencing urgent symptoms, like neurological damage or incontinence, you don’t need surgery today; you needed it yesterday. But when surgery, medication, and bed rest becomes a cycle and alters the way you live your life, you’ll find that the pain has a habit of sticking around. That leads to chronic pain, which alters your quality of life for years. One of the most common times I see people is after a car accident. Whiplash and other symptoms lead to tension and pain, especially in the back and shoulders (and you know what they say: When your back hurts, everything hurts). Sometimes surgery is necessary, but I believe that 80–90 percent of my car accident victims could manage their pain with the right instruction and treatment, including the following: • Exercise • Stretching • Progressive resistance training • Aerobics • Eating right
These can lead to positive habits and lifestyle changes rather than a cycle of surgeries and prescriptions. Don’t be reactive. Be proactive about your health, as it will be better for you every time. Constant prescriptions from doctors wanting a quick fix has contributed greatly to the opioid epidemic in our country. Maybe we wouldn’t be in this position if us health care workers gave patients better direction on managing pain in an organic, lasting way (whenever possible). I’m working on a project to help my patients manage back pain with the right habits. Hopefully I’ll be able to roll that out and attack this problem head-on very soon. As an industry, I know we can create more programs and utilize technology, including mobile apps, to instruct patients on how to get better — the right way. If you’re struggling with back pain, feel free to reach out for help. As you do, remember what I try to tell every patient who walks through my door: Exercise is medicine. Dr. Chi Izeogu
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Put On an Event to Bring in New Leads
People are social animals. We like to gather together; it’s one of our most basic instincts. Want to play on that instinct to boost your business and attract new leads? Plan and throw a free event! Free events are “a great way to help attract new customers, cement relationships with existing customers, and build buzz about your business,” says small-business expert Rieva Lesonsky. A public gathering is a good way to get your foot in the
door and generate some leads from the general public. It could be a free workshop or seminar, a meet-and-greet luncheon for local small-business owners, or even a birthday party for your company. Promoting your event is vital. You’ll want to invite your existing customers, and keep up a strong social media presence before, during, and after the event. One great way to advertise events is with a print newsletter, especially if you include a freestanding flyer for the event inside the newsletter. For more ideas on event promotion — as well as a great primer on event planning in general — check out Judy Allen’s book “Event Planning: The Ultimate Guide.” It goes into all the factors of event planning in way more detail than we can here! A free event is well worth the effort. Nothing builds the same goodwill in the community, generates leads from the public, and puts a great face on your business like a free lunch or workshop. And for some business owners, such as attorneys, hosting a free event might be one of the few ways to promote your company without running afoul of marketing rules that apply to your specific profession. Are you ready to host your own free event yet? Plan, promote, and don’t forget to follow up. Strike when the iron is hottest, during and immediately after the event, for great leads and customer retention rates. Be sure to ask people where they heard of your business as well — something you should already be doing. That way you’ll know how successful your event was at attracting new leads!
How to Leave a Message That Will Get You a Callback
Voicemails can be awkward — so awkward, in fact, that many young people don’t use them anymore. If they call and the party doesn’t answer, they just send a text instead. If they don’t text, the party assumes the question was answered. Business is different. Sometimes things can only be explained over the phone, and a voicemail just feels more personal. Since most small businesses involve outreach by phone of some kind to confirm appointments or deliver quotes, here are some strategies for securing a callback.
when you’ve convinced them in 30 seconds why they should call back, they’ll be listening the second time. Try being brief as well — less than 30 seconds — so the recipient knows that you respect their time and that a return call won’t take forever.
What Will Calling You Back Do for Them? During that crucial 30 seconds, there might be a lot of ground to cover, but be direct. Clearly state your business and explain how talking to you will benefit them. Just like in your business, your purpose is to offer value. If your value to them is clear in your voicemails, you should have no problem getting a timely callback.
Tone, Repetition, and Brevity Just like in real life, your tone is often more important than your message. Being clear and enthusiastic will go a long way. This is especially important at the end. A good-natured “Look forward to talking with you!” will go a lot further than a lackadaisical “Thanks.” Get into a habit of saying your phone number twice. Radio commercials do that for a reason. Consider offering it at the beginning, and then
Bonus Tip: Just for fun, here is a “trick play” if you want to have fun or be creative. If you want a callback, “accidentally” cut off your message before sharing valuable information. For example, “I really need to get in touch with you so I can …” or “I have your …” There’s nothing wrong with a little strategy when it comes to growing your business!
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Relief in the Golden Years How Physicians Can Better Manage Chronic Pain in Elderly Patients
just part of getting old.” It’s important that physicians do not accept such vague responses in regard to their patients’ pain. A pain scale is far more effective for assessing a patient’s pain. Additionally, American Nurse Today, the official journal of the American Nurses Association, recommends that health care professionals instruct older patients to keep a pain journal. This enables patients to record their pain between appointments and provide insight into the cause of pain. Pain journals can help physicians identify cases of chronic pain among older patients. Chronic pain is often a symptom of health disorders associated with advanced age. Peripheral vascular disorders, neuropathy, and musculoskeletal disorders, like arthritis and osteoporosis, can all lead to chronic pain. It is important for physicians to remember that while these disorders come with age, the chronic pain they cause should never be considered inevitable. Chronic pain has been linked to depression, poor sleep quality, and reduced social activity, all of which can lead to worse health issues in older patients. Aging is a natural part of human life, but chronic pain is not a normal part of the aging process. Physicians must be able to prepare a plan of care, be it through pharmacologic or nonpharmacologic pain management, that can successfully address their patient’s chronic pain and improve their quality of life. No person should be told they just have to “deal with the pain” due to their age.
‘Shoe Dog’ Gives Insight Into Nike’s Success When an entrepreneur or company becomes massively successful, it’s easy to construct a narrative that makes success seem like destiny. They look back and interpret every decision as a stepping stone on their way to eventual victory. Honest accounts of what it takes to dominate an industry are hard to come by, which makes Nike CEO Phil Knight’s “Shoe Dog” a refreshing change of pace from the standard business memoir. Completely candid, Knight gives equal space to his successes, failures, and insecurities. He isn’t afraid to admit when luck was the deciding factor. That’s not to say that Knight isn’t a visionary in many ways. In the early days of Nike, Knight hustled to an extreme degree and sold track shoes out of his trunk. He surrounded himself with smart, capable people, expanded sensibly, and never lost sight of his vision. As we age, some things are inevitable. Wrinkles will appear where there were none before, streaks of gray begin to run through our hair, and our health declines. By 2030, the population over the age of 65 in the United States is expected to reach 70 million. There are certain demands the medical field must meet in order to properly treat this growing population. One step involves becoming more adept at identifying and treating chronic pain in elderly patients. It can be a challenge to identify chronic pain in older adults because this demographic tends to underreport their pain. Often, when asked about their pain, older patients reply, “No worse than usual,” “The same old pain,” or “It’s
resource of the month American Society of Pain Educators Empowers Patients and Physicians For years, opioid abuse has been a growing problem in the field of pain treatment. Today, this epidemic is a national crisis, and one thing is certain: It is time to find a better way to treat pain. The American Society of Pain Educators (ASPE) is a nonprofit focused on educating health care professionals to help them become Certified Pain Educators (CPEs). CPEs act as “curbside consultants” to provide education within a clinical practice or through formal presentations about pain assessment, evaluation, and management. Though ASPE is the only organization dedicated to pain education training, becoming a CPE is not a requirement for membership. ASPE created an expansive network of professionals in the medical field. Members operate in hospitals, dental practices, nursing homes, and every other health care setting to help patients and other professionals learn how to treat pain in the safest way possible.
Called an “honest reminder of what the path to business success really looks like” by Bill Gates, “Shoe Dog” soars in a way few business books manage to.
Discover everything this organization has to offer at paineducators.org.
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50 Union Avenue, Suite 501 Irvington, NJ 07111 (973) 673-0601 table of contents here’s what’s inside
A Common Mistake With Pain Management PAGE 1
Use Events to Nab New Leads How to Get Your Calls Returned PAGE 2
Are Physicians Failing Elderly Patients? Book Review: ‘Shoe Dog’ PAGE 3
The Unstoppable Rise of the Bullet Journal PAGE 4
The Unstoppable Rise of the Bullet Journal The New Journaling System That’s Taken Social Media by Storm
In the modern age, where the internet is constantly flooded with productivity apps and trends promising to fix our schedules, unlock our potential, and improve our lives, it’s difficult not to wish for something simpler. We want an object we can hold in our hands that doesn’t come with a bunch of unwanted features.
bullet journalers examine last month’s list, eliminating completed or now- irrelevant tasks and migrating long-term or continuing tasks to the current month. Bullet journals may seem simple, and they are, but they’ve acquired an explosive following on social media. At the time of this writing, there are over 791,000 posts on Instagram tagged with the #bulletjournal hashtag; there are posts upon posts of users’ beautiful layouts, bearing intricate
Enter the bullet journal: the humble, easy-to-use notebook system that’s taken the world by storm.
calligraphy and embellished with incredible designs. As the bullet journal’s creator, Ryder Carroll, told New Republic writer Josephine Wolff, “The most valuable part of the bullet journal [is] the inventiveness of its community.” But don’t be daunted by users who seem to spend hours on every page of their journals. Really, it’s a simple system that only takes a few minutes to learn. Check out bulletjournal.com to learn how to start your own modular notebook. But be warned: You may get obsessed.
Instead of maintaining a separate to-do list, calendar, and diary, the bullet journaling system rolls everything into a single economical notebook. Partitioned into minimalistic “modules” — the Index, the Future Log, the Monthly Log, and the Daily Log — bullet journals encourage you to write down everything on your to-do list, single-line tidbits recounting important daily events, and little notes you take throughout the day. Everything is marked by a particular bullet: dots for tasks, circles for events, and dashes for notes. At the beginning of each month,
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