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Pain management

from Psychology, health and illness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2014

By
Stephen Morley
Edited by
Susan Ayers ,
Andrew Baum ,
Chris McManus ,
Stanton Newman ,
Kenneth Wallston ,
John Weinman  and
Robert West
Stephen Morley
Affiliation:
University of Leeds
Susan Ayers
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
Andrew Baum
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
Chris McManus
Affiliation:
St Mary's Hospital Medical School
Stanton Newman
Affiliation:
University College and Middlesex School of Medicine
Kenneth Wallston
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University School of Nursing
John Weinman
Affiliation:
United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas's
Robert West
Affiliation:
St George's Hospital Medical School, University of London
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Summary

The term pain management applies mainly to chronic pain rather than acute pain. In its broadest sense it includes a range of physical (e.g. spinal cord stimulation) and pharmacological (e.g. opioid drugs, intrathecal pumps, facet joint injections) as well as psychological interventions. Although the purpose of physical interventions is to reduce the intensity, frequency and duration with which pain is experienced, the overall aim of pain management is to ameliorate the experience of pain in its broadest sense rather than to eradicate it. Acute pain, such as postoperative pain, is expected to have a self-limiting time course and treatments are primarily directed at preventing its occurrence or reducing the magnitude of experienced pain during this period of time. This approach has been transferred to many medical treatments of chronic pain (such as those listed above) but while the elimination of pain is a worthy goal for chronic pain sufferers it is generally not possible with our present understanding of the neurobiology of chronic pain. By definition chronic pain is longstanding, usually defined as greater than six months but often many years. Most sufferers will have received a wide range of pharmacological treatments without experiencing complete relief. When pain persists over a period of time its impact becomes widespread, it needs to be considered as a multifaceted construct and its treatment is necessarily more complex. This chapter is therefore concerned primarily with psychological approaches to this problem.

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Chapter
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Cambridge Handbook of Psychology, Health and Medicine , pp. 370 - 374
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

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References

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