Chronic pain scoring

We are using the Helsinki Chronic Pain Index for chronic pain conditions in our doggy patients and I wanted to encourage others to think about using chronic pain scoring tools as a valuable objective assessment for their acupuncture practice. We encourage clients to sign up for 4 weekly sessions as an introductory block and take a HPCI at the beginning and end of the 4 weeks. It's really nice to see a difference in black and white as well as the owner's assessment. In the two cases where I have managed to get the client to bring the questionnaire back after the last session (I now just get them to fill it in while the dog is being needled during the last session!) I have had a reduction of 21/44 to 13/44 ( general stiff/lameness of 4 months duration) and 25/44 to 0/44 (acute-on-chronic forelimb lameness of 6 weeks' duration. I think it reinforces the value of the treatment to the client to see the figures too, and encourages them to continue treatment if appropriate.