25-11-21 - Patient Pain Flashcards
Learning outcomes
- Describe the common methods of assessment including behavioural and self-report
- Compare methods of psychological approaches to the alleviation of acute and chronic pain
- Define acute and chronic pain
- Understand the main theories of pain
What are 3 reasons we care about pain?
• Reasons we care about pain
1) Common health problem causing people to seek medical care
• Pain accounts for >80% of all visits to doctors
• Chronic pain is a prominent cause of disability worldwide
2) Poses major consequences for individual and society
• Disabling: interrupts, interferes, impacts
• Economic burden
3) Warning signal
• Motivates behavioural change
• Critical to long-term health and survival
What is the definition of pain?
• Pain is ‘an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage’
What is acute pain?
- Acute pain:
- Intense, but time limited
- Result of tissue damage or disease
- Typically disappears over time as injury heals
- Lasts < 3-6 months
- Sufferers highly motivated to seek out its causes, treat it
- Effectively treated by a number of pain-control techniques
What is chronic pain?
What are the 3 subsets of chronic pain?
- Chronic pain:
- Often begins as acute pain
- Does not dissipate after a minimum 6 months (e.g. lower-back pain, headache, pain associated with arthritis, cancer)
- High anxiety, feelings of hopelessness, helplessness
- Interferes with daily life
- 3 sub-categories:
- Recurrent acute
- Intractable-benign
- Progressive
What are the 3 types of chronic pain?
• 3 types of chronic pain:
- Recurrent acute
- Caused by benign or harmless condition
- repeated, intense episodes separated by period w/out pain
- Intractable-benign
- Benign but persistent pain
- Varying levels of intensity, but never disappears
- Progressive
- Pain often originates from a malignant condition
- Continuing pain, and discomfort
- Pain worsens over time, as underlying condition worsens
What does the specificity theory propose?
- Specificity theory proposes:
- Separate sensory system for perceiving pain
- Specific sensory receptors for detecting pain stimuli
- Specific peripheral nerves and pathway to the brain
- Specific area within the brain for processing pain signal
What does the pattern theory propose?
- Pattern theory proposes:
- No separate system for perceiving pain
- Pain results from the pattern or type of stimulation received by the nerve endings
- Intensity of the stimulation is key determination of pain
- Strong and mild stimuli of the same sense modality produce different patterns of neural activity
What are the limitations of the Specificity Theory (ST) and Pattern Theory (PT)?
- ST: incorrect - no specific receptor cells in body that transmit only information about pain
- PT: requires that stimuli triggering pain must be intense
- Pain can be experienced without tissue damage (e.g. phantom-limb pain)
- Tissue damage can exist without pain (e.g. athletes)
- Both fail to account for the important role of psychology in the perception of pain
What is the gate control theory?
- Nerve endings in damaged area transmit impulses to the spinal cord
- A ‘gate’ exists in spinal cord -‘neural gate’
- – OPEN to let the pain signal through
- – CLOSE to reduce the pain experience
- Gating mechanism modulates incoming pain signals before they reach the brain
- Includes the role of psychological factors in the experience of pain
What is Gate control in Gate theory influenced by?
• Gate Control is influenced by:
1) Amt of activity in pain fibres (A-delta & C)
• More activity - gate opens - more pain
• - AG: pricking/ stabbing (fast impulse transmission)
• - C: burning/ aching (slow impulse transmission)
2) Amt of activity in other peripheral fibres (A-beta)
• Harmless stimuli or mild irritation (touching, rubbing)
• closes the gate o less pain
3) Messages descending from brain - effects of anxiety,
• Excitement etc…. open or close gate
What does the gate control theory explain?
- The gate control theory explains:
- Psychological + physiological factors
- Explains why the same event can be interpreted by different people as more or less painful
- Explains why sometimes pain is not experienced Immediately
- Describes the individual as having some control over the experience of pain
What are the 3 ways pain is measured?
• Assessment of pain: 1) Physiological 2) Self-report 3) Behavioural • Advisable to use 2 or more methods
What are the physiological measures of pain?
- Assume pain perception is associated with specific physiological responses
- E.g Increase in heart rate, BP, respiration, muscle tension
- Relationship between physiological responses and experience of pain not consistent
- Limited use
What are self-report measures of pain?
What are 3 ways this can be done?
- Patients asked to describe their pain
- E.g where, what, when…
- Questions often incorporated within a clinical interview (for chronic pain pts)
• Methods of self-reporting pain:
1) Interviews
2) Pain rating scales and diaries
3) Pain questionnaires
