The Interventional Pain Therapy Competence Certificate (SSIPM)

The Interventional Pain Therapy Competence Certificate is a special training in the field of pain therapy. Different physicians like specialists for orthopaedic surgery and traumatology, anaesthesiology, radiology, neurology, neurosurgery and rheumatology work closely together. They are specially trained for the diagnosis and therapy of various types of pain based on profound knowledge of pain physiology and the mechanisms of pain development. Interventional pain therapy thus represents a comprehensive combination of different forms of treatment for pain relief.

According to the definition of SSIPM (Swiss Society for Interventional Pain Management), interventional pain therapy is an important part of modern pain medicine. Under local anaesthesia and X-ray or ultrasound control, fine needles are used to inject anaesthetic or anti-inflammatory drugs at nerve roots along the spine (periradicular injection), in the area of the autonomic nervous system or in joints. Diagnostic and therapeutic pain interventions are often applied to the spine in the case of sciatica, arthrosis and disc-related complaints, but also pain in the neck/shoulder/head area, hip, knee and ankle joints as well as in the iliosacral joints.