VIDEO: Meet SOAR’s Dr. Drahmane Kaba and Nurse Practitioner Dannielle O’Hare

SOAR Dedicated To Quality Care

SPACE COAST DAILY TV: Meet SOAR’s Dr. Drahmane Kaba, a Board Certified, fellowship trained Interventional Pain Management Specialist. Founded by Dr. Brian Dowdell, SOAR took off in 2003 with a philosophy of care based on a multidisciplinary approach to helping patients through a focus on advanced, minimally invasive interventional pain therapy, physical therapy, medication optimization and diagnostics.

BREVARD COUNTY • MELBOURNE, FLORIDA – Some kids hang out at the skate park or the video arcade. On the other hand, when he was growing up, Dr. Drahmane Kaba liked to hang out at the hospital.

“I grew up next to two hospitals in Roosevelt Island in New York City, so I used to spend many hours at the hospitals,” said Kaba. “That’s where my passion for medicine took off.”

Kaba recently joined the staff of Spine, Orthopedics and Rehabilitation – better known as SOAR – as an interventional pain management specialist.

Launched by Dr. Brian Dowdell in 2003, SOAR, which serves Central Florida patients through offices in Melbourne, Orlando and Rockledge, is dedicated to the application of cutting-edge treatments to manage pain, be it along the back, neck, head, wrists and hands, joints, arms, legs or face.

An estimated 1 in 4 people in the United States suffer from some type of chronic pain in their lifetime, whether for several weeks or for many years. However, pain, once thought an inevitable by-product of an active lifestyle or even just of the passing years, has met its match with SOAR practitioners such as Kaba, a board certified, fellowship trained specialist.

“Wisdom may be synonymous with age, but pain need not be,” said Kaba.

“There are a lot more tools now to fight pain, depending on the physician’s expertise. Sometimes, just the right information can be the treatment. If you educate the patients, you can go a long way in helping them.”

Kaba earned his doctorate of medicine from SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York, and completed his residency in physical medicine and rehabilitation from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

He is a diplomate of the American Board of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation and is affiliated with the American Academy of Pain Medicine, the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians, the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation – Pain and Neuromuscular Council.

Dedicated To Quality Care

Also recently joining SOAR is nurse practitioner Dannielle O’Hare.

O’Hare joined the SOAR team in September of this year as a newly minted nurse practitioner, but she has had a 20-year career as a registered nurse, serving as a neuro ICU nurse, a cath lab nurse, a flight nurse in the military and as a perioperative nurse.

She completed one of her clinical rotations for nurse practitioner school with Dr. Dowdell earlier this year.

“He hired me once I graduated,” said O’Hare.

“I had worked in pain management as a registered nurse and always felt it was a rewarding field of medicine. In many cases, we have the ability to significantly improve our patient’s pain through minimally invasive procedures.”

At SOAR, O’Hare’s duties include assessing, diagnosing and treating patients, ordering and reviewing diagnostic reports, prescribing appropriate medications and recommending procedures to help alleviate the patient’s pain, Additionally, O’Hare can herself perform a variety of treatments such as trigger point injections.

“It is exciting to see the new treatments we are able to offer our patients,” said O’Hare.

“Stem cell therapy is one of those newer treatments and the outcomes have been pretty astonishing.”

Body’s Super Producers

Stem cells are the body’s super producers, with an ability to not only make copies of themselves when they divide but also to replicate other, more specialized cells. Stem cell therapy, a minimally invasive procedure, facilitates rapid healing and recovery for muscle damaged through physical stress.

Stem cell therapy, while now an important and highly successful treatment modality, is only one of many available pain relieving options at SOAR.

“Advances such as high-frequency spinal cord stimulation, radiofrequency ablation implantable pumps, percutaneous discectomy and intradiscal electrothermal therapy offer considerable relief from chronic pain,” said Dowdell.

For patients with severe, chronic back and leg pain, high-frequency spinal cord stimulation provides superior clinical outcomes. With this procedure, electric pulses are delivered to the spinal cord by a small device implanted under the skin.
Radiofrequency ablation implantable pumps selectively apply small amounts of pain-relieving medication to the spinal cord for pain relief.

Percutaneous discectomy involves the removal of herniated disc material that is pressing on a nerve root or the spinal cord. The procedure uses a very small incision and is performed under local anesthesia.

Intradiscal electrothermal therapy is a minimally invasive treatment for chronic low back pain. A doctor uses live x-ray imaging to insert a hollow needle with a flexible catheter and heating element into the spinal disc. The heat destroys the nerve fibers causing the pain and seals any small tear.

Additionally, treatment choices include botox injections for migraines and muscle spasm and joint injections for rapid-response relief of inflamed joints, tendons and bursa. With such an arsenal of medical weapons, pain often doesn’t stand a chance.

“Whether pain is a result of a motor vehicle accident, a work injury, the aging process or from overuse, our goal is to reduce pain to allow our patients the ability to function comfortably at work and home and enjoy the activities they love,” said O’Hare.

SOAR offices are located at 308 S. Harbor City Blvd., Suite A, in Melbourne; 389 Commerce Pkwy., Suite 160 in Rockledge; and 12301 Lake Underhill Road, Suite 121, in Orlando.

For more information, call 321-733-0064 or see SoarFlorida.com

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