Pain organizations 2014

Pain organizations especially in the Netherlands.

Already in the seventies pain is in the focus of attention. That is not surprising. Chronic pain costs the Dutch society billions per year. That was the case in 1980 and in 2014 it still is. That has to do with interests.

Not just for the patients but also for the treatment officers chronic pain is a very big problem. Although more and more knowledge is available the essence of (especially) chronic pain without rationalizing findings is not known yet.

Because of the enormous amounts of money involved a big commercial market originated. By that chronic pain is a great interest to many organizations.

From those interests a large number of organizations came into being in the field of:

Publicity media

Health care providers

Patients organizations

or combinations of these.

National and regional organizations looked for reinforcement and founded umbrella organizations. The following summing up no doubt is not complete. This page does not want to be a copy of the pain start page. When organizations that need further explanation lack then this site is willing to complete it.

Email address : mailto:

Publicity media.

A provider of commercial and non-commercial pain information is:Pijn.startpagina.nl

Just like other pages of Startpagina.nl this site offers a broad choice of links concerning all possible information about pain in its widest sense.

Investigation, publicity and care.

Worldwide operating is the World Institute of Pain: WIP. Its objective is being formulated in the following phrase:

WIP's mission is to bring together the most recognized experts in the field of pain medicine throughout the world for the advancement and standardization of interventional pain practice and the achievement of improved standards of care for pain patients.”

So the activity is focused on bringing together of the most recognized experts in the field of pain treatment to improve and standardize pain treatment. An organization taken from the view of health care organizations. That is different from another worldwide organization, originated from health care organizations/investigators: the IASP, International Association for the Study of Pain. The IASP is focused on broadening and disseminating knowledge. The organization operates on a non-profit base.

It brings together Investigation, publicity, health care organizations and policymakers.

National organizations often are a member of IASP.

Each country has its own organizations, the Netherlands know the Dutch Pain Society, member and section of IASP and the European Pain Federation, EFIC.

Beside these general organizations there are also specialized organizations in the field of the spine and the muscle and musculoskeletal: International Spine Intervention Society .

This is an international association of specialized health care organizations in the field of spine complaints. The association's mission is : “to develop and promote the highest standards for the practice of interventional procedures in the diagnosis and treatment of spine pain”. They want to develop and promote the best standards and treatment of spine complaints. There is also a Dutch version: Dutch Spine Society, mainly focused on spine surgery.

In the field of the muscle and musculoskeletal there is the FIMM, International Federation for Manual/Musculoskeletal Medicine. This is an organization in which doctors operate in the field of the musculoskeletal and manual therapy. A very specific healthcare group focusing on treatment of pain and functional complaints. There is plenty of specific health care. All big medical centers have a pain policlinic with a treatment center. There are also many smaller independent centers and many independents. This site does not know quality criteria for health care in the field of pain treatment. For that reason this site will restrict to health care organizations published by the Dutch Pain Society on their professional pagina. Locally acquainted practitioners not affiliated with one of these societies mostly are well known to the own general practitioner who can refer to them. There are also many alternatively/complementarily operating doctors focusing especially on chronic pain who are not affiliated with one of these societies. They have their own organizations, educations, complaint procedures etc. These groups have their own umbrella organizations as well.

As far as we know about them we will publish information on the web(on request) of those organizations that have at their disposal a post-doc education with a diploma, a registration of pain practitioners and a complaint procedure.

In the meantime there is a great number of patient societies of which “Stichting Pijn Hoop” is the oldest. Pijn Hoop has a number of regional sections and exists from patients with pain. They support and help other people who have pain with the objective to make that pain livable.

They are also on the site (with logo) of the Dutch Pain Society. They have information of health care as well  page=ver_patienten.

Pijn Platform Nederland forms a partnership of patient organizations that commits itself to get attention, understanding and recognition of high quality and reliable pain treatments. They have joined forces to look after the interests of people with pain and to guarantee the continuity and quality from the patient's perspective.

December 2014