Descriptive and clinical characteristics of patients receiving a spinal cord stimulator at walter reed national military medical center at one year follow-up

Spinal cord stimulators (SCS) have been shown to effectively treat chronic pain; however, few studies have examined the clinical outcomes for patients who received a SCS implant in the Military Health System. This project examined outcomes in patients from the pain management clinic at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (WRNMMC) who received a SCS at one year post implant. The WRNMMC SCS cohort includes patients (active duty, veterans, and dependents) who completed a SCS trial and received a permanent implant. This project compared patients for whom we have data pre-SCS trial, as well as at 3 months, 6 months and 1 year after implantation (N = 51). Cohort demographics were primarily active duty, male, with pain from non-combat-related injuries. RANOVA results suggest that pain intensity ratings and Pain Disability Index scores significantly decreased from trial to all follow-up time points. The greatest mean reduction in both occurred from trial to 3 months follow-up. RANOVA analyses suggest that opioid Morphine Equivalent (MEQ) did not change between the trial and follow-up time points. However, descriptive statistics suggest that approximately 60% of patients were either satisfied or very satisfied with their pain relief at each follow-up time point. Findings suggest that pain management clinic patients at WRNMMC who undergo SCS implantation are highly satisfied with their pain relief, show improvements in disability index scores and pain intensity ratings from baseline to all follow-up time points. However, this project did not find that MEQ decreased from baseline to any of the follow-up time points. The results also support that for those patients who receive SCS in our local population, that it is likely to be a beneficial treatment. However, future projects should look at outcomes from a larger sample size and at up to two years post SCS implant.