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Rehabilitation planning

Rehabilitation planning sets out how to rebuild movement, capacity and daily function alongside treatment aimed at the pain itself. It is built into the plan here rather than referred out afterwards, because a procedure that reduces pain only helps lastingly if that window is used.

An injection can reduce pain. It cannot restore the strength lost over two years of avoiding movement, retrain a movement pattern, rebuild confidence after a frightening injury, or fix the sleep disruption that is amplifying everything else. Those require a different kind of work, and it is the part most often left to chance.

Why it is planned together. Dr Martin holds fellowships in both pain medicine and rehabilitation medicine. In practice this means the rehabilitation plan is made at the same time as the procedural plan, not as a separate referral once the procedure is done. If a procedure is expected to give a three-month window, the plan for those three months exists before the procedure happens.

What a plan involves. It starts with goals — specific ones. "Less pain" is not a plan; returning to work on modified hours, sleeping through the night, getting back on the bike, or being able to lift a grandchild are. From there the plan addresses capacity through graded exercise, movement quality, pacing so that activity is built up rather than boom-and-bust, sleep, and the psychological side of persistent pain where relevant.

Who is involved. Depending on need: physiotherapists, exercise physiologists, clinical psychologists, occupational therapists, and your GP. Dr Martin coordinates and reviews rather than duplicating what others do well.

After neurological injury. Where pain follows spinal cord injury, brain injury, stroke or amputation, pain and functional loss are not separable problems and treating them separately works poorly. This group is a particular focus of the practice.

Return to work. Where relevant, planning covers graded return, modified duties, and communication with employers and insurers. This applies to WorkCover WA and motor vehicle injury claims, which have their own processes and timeframes.

What this is not. It is not a promise that function returns to what it was, and for some conditions it will not. The aim is the best achievable function and the most manageable pain, defined by what matters to you.