Dr. Henri Roca & a Whole Person Approach to Chronic Pain

Chronic pain affects people worldwide, impacting work and life activities.¹ In the US, an estimated 20.9% (~51.6 million people) experience chronic pain,² and the complex medical needs of these patients may not be wholly met by a prescription pain reliever. Chronic pain has been increasingly recognized as a biopsychosocial condition, and many clinicians find that a personalized multimodal interdisciplinary treatment approach is preferred over medication only.^1,3,4 The subjective experience of chronic pain is believed to result from interactions between multiple contributors, including nociceptive, sociocultural, emotional, behavioral, and cognitive.^1,3,4

While there is support for the application of biopsychosocial perspectives in the treatment of chronic pain cases, such perspectives may be overlooked due to either inadequate training, attitudes favoring a biomedical approach, or a lack of time to spend with each patient.^3,5 Yet a thorough pain evaluation has been highlighted as a key component of chronic pain management and includes components such as a detailed patient history, assessment of red flags, careful physical examination, addressing psychosocial factors, and building a therapeutic alliance with the patient.^3,4

In the extended video below, functional medicine clinician Henri Roca, MD, discusses his approach to chronic pain and explores those tools that help empower patients in their healing journey.

(Video Time: 10 minutes) Dr. Roca is a board-certified family physician and functional medicine specialist who practices holistic and integrative medicine. He created the Integrative Medicine Section at LSU School of Medicine and the Integrative Medicine Program at Greenwich Hospital and serves on the board of directors for the Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine.

Functional medicine clinician Henri Roca, MD, understands that health behaviors are born within family, community, and social systems. He tells his patients that everything that has ever happened to them brings them to the health they have today and that each choice they make today creates the foundation upon which they can build the health they desire.

“So I have to see the whole person. I have to get to the root cause. I have to honor their life story, and I have to use everything that works to help bring the person to their best place of health.” 

– Dr. Roca 

Dr. Roca is skilled at interpreting interconnecting webs of cause and effect to get to underlying root causes of chronic pain, and his unique way of connecting with patients has helped him form myriad effective therapeutic relationships. “I practice integrative functional medicine. That’s the only way I can do medicine,” says Dr. Roca. 

In addition to his current position as medical director at OneMedicine Wellness Services in Arkansas, he is a primary care physician who offers an individualized approach to health and disease for his patients, recognizing the interaction and importance of every aspect of a person’s life—mind, body, and spirit. 

Learn more about the functional medicine approach to chronic pain, those lifestyle-based approaches that have shown benefit,^6-10 and personalizing therapeutic treatments through IFM’s Applying Functional Medicine in Clinical Practice (AFMCP)^TM course.