Pain Management Health Article

Definition

Pain management covers a number of methods to prevent, reduce, or stop pain sensations. These include the use of medications; physical methods such as ice and physical therapy; and psychological methods.

Purpose

Pain serves as an alert to potential or actual damage to the body. The definition for damage is quite broad; pain can arise from injury as well as disease. Pain that acts as a warning is called productive pain. After the message is received and interpreted, further pain offers no real benefit. Pain can have a negative impact on a person's quality of life and impede recovery from illness or injury. Unrelieved pain can become a syndrome in its own right and cause a downward spiral in a person's health and outlook. Managing pain properly facilitates recovery, prevents additional health complications, and improves a person's quality of life.

For many years it was believed that infants do not feel pain the way older children and adults do. As of the early 2000s, however, there has been a better understanding of the problems of pain, even in infancy.

Description

Before considering pain management, a review of pain definitions and mechanisms may be useful.

What is pain?

Pain is the means by which the peripheral nervous system (PNS) warns the central nervous system (CNS) of injury or potential injury to the body. The CNS comprises the brain and spinal cord, and the PNS is composed of the nerves that stem from and lead into the CNS. PNS includes all nerves throughout the body except the brain and spinal cord.

Once the brain has received and processed the pain message and coordinated an appropriate response, pain has served its purpose. The body uses natural pain killers, called endorphins, that are meant to derail further pain messages from the same source. However, these natural pain killers may not adequately dampen a continuing pain message. Pain is generally divided into two categories: acute and chronic.