Pain Flashcards
What is pain?
An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage
What are the different aspects of pain?
\+ Socio-cultural influences \+ Subjective perception \+ Psychological influences \+ Genetic predisposition \+ Drug-use patterns \+ Biological element
What are the features of acute pain?
+ Intense, but time limited
+ Result of tisue damage or disease
+ Typically disappears over time as injury heals
+ Lasts < 6 months
+ Sufferers highly motivated to seek out its causes & treat it
+ Effectively treated by a number of pain-control techniques
What are features of chronic pain?
+ Often begins as acute pain
+ Does not dissipate after a min. 6 months (e.g lower-back pain, headache, pain associated with arthritis, cancer)
+ High anxiety, feelings of hopelessness, helplessness; due to a lack of medical treatment success
+ Interferes with daily life
+ 3 sub-categories
What are the 3 sub-categories of pain?
+ Recurrent acute
+ Intractable benign
+ Progressive
What are features of recurrent acute pain?
+ Caused by benign or harmless condition
+ Repeated, intense episodes separated by perood without pain
What are features of intractable-benign pain?
+ Benign but persistent pain
+ Varying levels of intensity, but never disappears
What are features of progressive pain?
+ Pain often originates from a malignant condition
+ Continuing pain, and discomfort
+ Pain worsens over time, as underlying condition worsens
What are the 3 theories of pain?
+ Specificity theory
+ Pattern theory
+ The Gate Control theory
What does Specificity theory propose?
+ No separate system for percieving 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 does Pattern theory propose?
+ No separate system for percieving 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 limitations regarding Specificity & Pattery theories?
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 does Gate Control Theory propose?
+ Nerve endings in damages area transmit impulses to the spinal cord
+ A ‘gate’ exists in the spinal cord (‘nerual gate’)
- OPEN to let pain signal through
- CLOSE to reduce the pain experience
+ Gating mechansim modulates incoming pain sugnals befire they reach the brain
+ Invludes the role of psychological factors in the experiences of pain
What is Gate Control influenced by?
- Amount of actvity in pain fibres (A-delta & C):
- more activity > gate opens > more pain
- A-delta: pricking/ stabbing (fast impulse transmission)
- C: burning/ aching (slow impulse transmission) - Amount of activity in other peripheral fibres (A-beta)
- harmless stimuli or mild irritation (touching, rubbing)
- closes the gate > less pain - Messages descending from the brain - effects of anxiety, excitement etc. open/close the gate
What are features of The Gate Control Theory?
+ Includes psychological AND 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 indicidual as having some control over the experiences of pain
