Abstract

A computer-implemented Pain Management Advisor (PMA) based on an interactive knowledge-based expert system. The PMA facilitates the diagnosis and treatment of acute and chronic pain. The PMA system includes three key components: a knowledge-based component for use by the primary care providers; an inductive learning component and case-based reasoning technology for use by the chronic pain patient; and a third component used by primary care providers to consult with pain specialists and to update/modify pain management algorithms. One embodiment includes the steps of: (1) inputting demographic information for a patient into a computer; (2) inputting medical symptom information for the patient into the computer; (3) inputting a pain score into the computer; (4) generating a treatment plan for the patient by the steps of: automatically presenting to a care provider at least one rule-based pain management algorithm based on the demographic and medical symptom information; permitting a care provider to select one of the rule-based pain management algorithms; applying the selected rule-based algorithm to ask the patient questions about pain characteristics of the patient; inputting responses from the patient to such questions into the computer; generating a treatment plan recommendation for the patient based on the responses; (5) permitting a care provider to adopt the treatment plan; (6) generating a prescription and related instructions in accordance with the adopted treatment plan; (7) recording the adopted treatment plan and generated prescription information in the computer as a patient file.