The Gold Standard Approach for Chronic MSK Pain: Meet David

Today more than ever, HR and wellness leaders can make a positive impact on their organizations and employees. Understandably, these functions can prioritize data that is critical for human factors and the bottom line but overlook the individual, who often goes unnoticed or simply shows up in unidentified claims data once a year.

Recognize individuals as part of the whole

When David, a healthy 62-year-old professional, injured his back exercising, he thought about going to physical therapy, just like the last time.

But David also remembered how difficult physical therapy was to fit into his busy lifestyle and family commitments: a combined trip of one hour plus 45-minutes of therapy meant a nearly two-hour block of time for each session. That’s when he decided to try the Kaia Health solution for lower back pain offered through his employer.

“I felt relief the very first time, and by the third day I was walking very near normal,” described David. “Kaia is like having a physical therapist 24 hours a day.”

In the current climate with new remote work situations and added stress, the ability to access therapy and treat musculoskeletal (MSK) pain and other conditions is critical. For David and thousands of other working professionals just like him, gold-standard, multimodal therapy is tackling pain and changing lives.

The costly toll when MSK conditions add up

David’s story is just one example of the impact that HR and benefits leaders can have every day. When it comes to MSK pain, home life, careers, and relationships are impacted in very real ways. Ready to make a difference?

No other chronic health condition impacts more lost workdays and more healthcare spend than MSK lower back pain. It’s the leading cause of disability globally and the number one reason for missing work. Employees who experience MSK lower back pain also have an average of five related conditions that complicate care, including chronic fatigue (41 percent of cases) and depression (29 percent of cases). The Multimodal BPS Model (employed by Kaia Health) can address not only primary back pain, but also the adjunct issues that often accompany MSK disorders.

Consider a Multimodal BPS Model

Because MSK pain can be so complex, experts now realize that the most effective therapy involves a multidisciplinary, multimodal approach that considers the physical and psychological aspects of pain. The biopsychosocial (BPS) disease model takes into account three major factors that must be considered together, as a system, when treating medical conditions:

• Biological – includes everything about the “biological self,” from molecules and DNA to internal organs and the nervous system.
• Psychological – includes our personality, behaviors, learning skills, emotions, coping skills, and overall mental health.
• Social – includes all the interactions we have with the environment and other people every day, including our family, friends, social support network, cultural tradition and education.

The multimodal approach to MSK back pain is the accepted gold standard in therapy, incorporating an integrated mind-body approach that takes these complex factors into account. However, due to the limitations of traditionally delivered (in-clinic) MSK therapy – which can be costly, resource-intensive and lack accessibility – digital health has taken on a powerful, new role in the implementation of MSK therapy. That’s where Kaia Health’s digitized, highly personalized approach to MSK comes in, building on the BPS model to engage employees just like David with an MSK digital therapeutic (DTx) that includes:

• Cost-saving, scalable digital health
• Effective, home-based, easy-to-use technology
• Interactive, AI-powered technology delivered via web-enabled smartphones

Inspire change for your population

HR and benefits managers can have a direct, positive impact on employee quality of life right down to the individual level. This empowerment includes changing employees’ lives for the better – as David experienced – through increased productivity, improved job satisfaction and lower overall healthcare costs.

No one knows the challenges of MSK therapy better than your employees. Using AI technology and human coaching, digitized multimodal therapy can be integrated with existing wellness benefits and deliver the gold-standard digital therapeutic for chronic pain.

To learn more about making a positive change for your population (and individuals like David),  schedule a brief intro call or demo with our team.