Believe it or not, acute pain has a vital function and serves as an alarm signal, while chronic pain is considered a disease in itself and affects daily activities. In Mexico, this type has a high prevalence, although there is no efficient treatment for this condition.
What is pain?
It can be defined as an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage. so not alone It does not have a physiological component but also includes the affective-emotional aspect, which causes pain to be seen as an unpleasant sensation that generates anguish and prompts the patient to seek medical help.
Assessment
Before starting a treatment, the doctor needs to have a very clear idea of the type of pain that the patient presents. Therefore, it is advisable to objectively, systematically and periodically document the symptoms. The doctor must evaluate the temporality, causality, location, distribution, characteristics, type, severity or intensity, duration, periodicity, personal circumstances and previous treatment. In patients with chronic pain, a psychological or psychiatric assessment should be performed.
On the other hand, to recognize its intensity, an analog scale with at least two options is used: the analog verbal scale (5 points) and the analog visual scale (rule from 0 to 10). In the first, the patient is asked to describe the intensity of his pain through 5 points:
- Absence.
- Mild.
- Moderate.
- Strong.
- Very strong.
In the second measurement, the patient is asked to indicate, on a scale from 0 to 10, their level of pain, where 0 is the absence of pain and 10 is the maximum level that a person can tolerate.
Pain treatment
Historically, in Mexico, pain treatment has been underestimated. In an attempt to have at least one guideline, expert consensus has been reached to analyze the literature on it and its quality, as well as the degree of evidence to recommend treatments for it. There are also guidelines for the treatment of oncological (cancer) and neuropathic pain