Occupational therapy intervention in adults with complex regional pain syndrome

Abstract

Introduction: complex regional pain syndrome is understood as a chronic neuropathy with a progressive and painful appearance, which can be classified into 2 types depending on the existence or not of nerve injuries, this can occur between 2% and 5% of the adult population. This syndrome produces a physical disability to carry out and participate in activities of daily life, generating an evident occupational imbalance, which reflects the need for an Occupational Therapy approach. The aim of this review was determine the intervention of Occupational Therapy in adults with complex regional pain syndrome. Methods: descriptive study of bibliographic review, using databases such as Pubmed, ScienceDirect, Scielo, EBSCOHOST, and Google Scholar were used. The following descriptors were used for the search “Occupational Therapy / Terapia Occupacional” AND “Síndrome de Dolor Regional Complejo / Complex Regional Pain Syndrome”, published in Spanish and English between 2015 and 2020. Results: occupational Therapy performs an interpretation of the diagnosis and its influence on occupations, in a way that provides an analysis of occupational performance. It can implement representation techniques which have been shown to reduce the inflammation and pain that these users present, also makes use of occupational activities in their intervention which can increase function by 10% in clothing activities, 20% in personal care and 25% in food preparation, while reducing from 92% to 21% the results classified as "bad" in scales of daily life. Conclusions: an early intervention process is essential since it allows to reduce the possibility of appearance in functional and limiting sequelae for the correct occupational performance in all its spheres. It´s important to point out the need to generate more research at the national level about this and other issues, as well as the contributions of the occupational therapist to the multidisciplinary team and benefits for the user.