Integrative Pain Management - Chinese Medicine and Western Medicine

Develop your understanding of pain management

Pain, though common, is often extremely complex to treat and diagnose. Health professionals must navigate through the many different causes and influential factors to provide effective treatment for their patients.

On this four-week course, you’ll learn how to use an integrative clinical approach to improve pain diagnosis and treatment. You’ll discover the different pain management approaches in both Chinese and Western medicine before learning how to combine the two for effective results.

By the end, you’ll have professional pain management knowledge to take into your workplace.

Explore the pain pathway and causes of pain

Furthering your knowledge of pain and its symptoms, you’ll explore pain pathway, threshold, and types of pain.

This knowledge will help you understand pain and its burden, and how to address it timely and properly by using a comprehensive assessment.

Delve into Western medicine and traditional Chinese medicine

You’ll unpack the different treatment approaches in Western medicine before exploring traditional Chinese medicine and how it treats both symptoms and root causes.

You’ll be given an overview of Chinese medicine and how its two key notions – holism and pattern identification – can be applied in pain management.

Next, you’ll investigate the existing situation between Chinese and Western medicine before analysing the upcoming collaboration between the two approaches to help enhance pain treatment.

Learn from the experts at HKU SPACE

Throughout the course, you’ll be guided by the experts at HKU School of Professional and Continuing Education (HKU SPACE) and to help you explore and understand a variety of pain management strategies.

With this knowledge, you’ll be equipped to improve your pain diagnosis and treatment in your workplace.

This course is designed for Western medical professionals such as pain medicine specialists, general practitioners, physiotherapists, psychologists, and nurses.

It may also be useful for Chinese medicine practitioners who are interested in integrative pain management.

• Understanding on Pain - the Western Medicine Perspective
• Course Introduction
• Introduction to physiology and pathology of pain
• Diagnosis and evaluation of pain
• Overview of pain management
• Summary of the week
• Severity of Painful Symptoms & Need to Properly Address the Issue
• Introduction
• Severity of pain
• Addressing pain timely and properly: comprehensive assessment
• Addressing pain timely and properly: individualised treatment approach
• Summary of the week
• Application of Chinese Medicine in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Pain
• Introduction to Chinese medicine
• Holism of pain management & pattern identification
• Chinese medicine treatment for pain
• Summary of the week
• Pain Management: Role of Combined Chinese/Western Medicine Approaches
• An overview on pain management
• Western medicine in pain management
• Chinese medicine in pain management
• Integrated Chinese medicine pain clinic (IPC)
• Summary of the week