NEWS RELEASE
May 30, 2003

Contact: Laurie Jake, ATRA Communications Coordinator
Phone (480) 460-1525 or
Ann Huston, ATRA Executive Director
Phone: (703) 683-9420

Recreational Therapist to Address Pain Management Issues

(Alexandria, VA) ATRA Member Sharon Nichols has been asked to be a Genesis representative on the CMS Pain Management Collaborative. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has funded an 18-month project in which seven large Long Term Care chains were selected based on proposals they submitted: Beverly, Genesis, HCR/Manor Care, IHS, Kindred, Mariner, and SunBridge. The ultimate goal of this Collaborative Project is to improve the ability to assess and manage pain that interferes with the full life of long term care customers and residents. The Collaborative model goes beyond individual facility changes to wide scale practice changes. The corporations have selected core faculty for the project and Nichols will be the only CTRS involved. Nichols, who works, as a Therapeutic Recreation Consultant in Clinical Services for Genesis ElderCare’s New England Region, will be attending the meeting on June 17 & 18th in Baltimore at the CMS Headquarters. According to Nichols, this meeting has the potential to be very big for recreation therapy and its recognition as a viable treatment option for persons experiencing pain. Nichols is a past president of ATRA and currently co-leads ATRA’s Public Policy team.

According to Nichols, pain is one of the # 1 issues in health care and costs billions and billions of dollars. A study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society found that nursing facility residents may not get adequate pain relief because of the fear of becoming addicted to pain medication or because staff does not have the time to address a residents' needs. According to the study, some nursing facility residents do not complain of discomfort because of misconceptions that their pain cannot be treated. According to ATRA, the health care needs of older adults are an emerging national priority, and will continue to make significant demands upon the health care system, as well as to present challenges to providers to offer effective and cost-efficient care. Nonpharmacological interventions such as recreational therapy can offer significant relief to nursing facility residents. As quality of life issues become increasingly more recognized by the healthcare community, healthcare professionals are challenged in finding creative ways to address these issues. Nichols states, “I am thrilled to have been asked and very excited to be able to participate in this Pain Management Collaborative”.

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The American Therapeutic Recreation Association (ATRA) was founded in 1984 to advance the profession of therapeutic recreation. ATRA is a non-profit, professional membership organization dedicating 100% of resources and efforts to promote therapeutic recreation professionals in health care and human service settings. For more information, please contact the ATRA National Office http://www.atra-tr.org