Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

Chronic pain is more than the physical symptoms, and hurts deeper than the emotional suffering. That’s why at AMITA Health Comprehensive Pain Management Program, we work together to treat the multitude of effects and limitations caused by chronic pain. We team up to treat and manage the symptoms, limitations, and emotional aspects of chronic pain while working toward your goals of regaining a functioning future. For you, and those who love you, break free from the grip of debilitating pain.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

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Pain occurs when something hurts, causing an uncomfortable or unpleasant feeling. The presence of pain often means that something is wrong. Each individual is the best judge of his or her own pain.There is a common tie that connects people around the world: the experience of pain. While many people experience pain differently, and experience pain relative to their own levels of tolerance, pain is a universal sensation, and, at times, a shared experience. While individual physical pain is isolated to one’s own body, empathy for the physical pain of others and the resulting emotional pain can be shared. Being empathetic and considerate towards others not only brings people together, but also reinforces the mark of existence we all share due to the presence of pain. The nature of pain pushes the body and the mind to its limits, and because of this, it is a feeling that many people try to avoid. However, pain is important and necessary to the human experience because it is a mark of existence, teaching one to exercise sympathy, perseverance, and appreciation in a complex world shared by many.
Pain has the ability to teach one to appreciate and embrace life. Pain is also a clear signal that one is alive. In her essay, “The Pain Scale,” Eula Biss talks about how the four vital signs used to determine the health of a patient are “blood pressure, temperature, breath, and pulse.” She also adds that it has “recently been suggested that pain be considered a fifth vital sign” (175). Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

Pain Essay: unit 3

There are various definitions of pain. The most commonly agreed upon seems to be “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience arising from actual or potential tissue damage or described in terms of such damage”
The most appropriate definition of pain within clinical practice was suggested by Margo McCaffrey in (1968). His definition was ‘whatever the experiencing person says it is, existing whenever he says it does’
Pain is an abhorrent feeling that is transported to the brain by sensory neurons. The symptoms of displeasure act on potential injury to the body. 

depression, or sometimes may even happen without a known trigger.
The recognisable job of pain is that it supplies consistent information about our bodies allowing us to make any alterations to movements we make. Pain is usually a cautionary signal that there is a problem within, This then provokes us to react in a defensive manner as to deter us from moving in a certain way, or performing certain acts.
Pain also makes us seek assistance, this being the result of many hospital and/or doctor visitations. Pain is also psychological as it can produce terror and apprehension. So when pain is produced an evolutionary way of thinking is that it is telling us to act quickly. Even whilst looking at the above reasoning pain is not quite so clear and understandable.
Occasionally pain has no apparent fundamental cause and this ends up encumbering an individual’s life.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper
Marijuana has a long medical history, ranging from its anecdotal use in ancient times, through medical prescribing in the 19th and early 20th centuries to modern. "The first record of cannabis as a medicine can be found in the oldest Chinese pharmacopeia, Shen Nag Ben Cao Jing, written in the Eastern Han Dynasty (25 AD to 220 AD). It was indicated for rheumatic pain, malaria, constipation, and disorders of the female reproductive system" (Greenwell, 2012, Vol. 26 Issue 1). Pain is one of the most common reasons that medical cannabis is recommended. "Scientists have long known that tetrahydracannabinol (THC), the active ingredient in marijuana, is an effective pain killer" 
Marijuana has a long medical history, ranging from its anecdotal use in ancient times, through medical prescribing in the 19th and early 20th centuries to modern. "The first record of cannabis as a medicine can be found in the oldest Chinese pharmacopeia, Shen Nag Ben Cao Jing, written in the Eastern Han Dynasty (25 AD to 220 AD). It was indicated for rheumatic pain, malaria, constipation, and disorders of the female reproductive system" (Greenwell, 2012, Vol. 26 Issue 1). Pain is one of the most common reasons that medical cannabis is recommended. "Scientists have long known that tetrahydracannabinol (THC), the active ingredient in marijuana, is an effective pain killer" (Mcdonagh, 2003). Studies of medical marijuana show significant improvement in various types of pain. "Marijuana appears to exert its pain relieving effects by acting on certain sites in the brain and spinal nerves. Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper
What is the difference between acute and chronic pain?

Acute pain usually comes on suddenly and is caused by something specific. It is sharp in quality. Acute pain usually does not last longer than six months. It goes away when there is no longer an underlying cause for the pain. Causes of acute pain include:

  • Surgery
  • Broken bones
  • Dental work
  • Burns or cuts
  • Labor and childbirth

After acute pain goes away, a person can go on with life as usual.

Chronic pain is pain that is ongoing and usually lasts longer than six months. This type of pain can continue even after the injury or illness that caused it has healed or gone away. Pain signals remain active in the nervous system for weeks, months, or years. Some people suffer chronic pain even when there is no past injury or apparent body damage. Chronic pain is linked to conditions including:Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

  • Headache
  • Arthritis
  • Cancer
  • Nerve pain
  • Back pain
  • Fibromyalgia pain

People who have chronic pain can have physical effects that are stressful on the body. These include tense muscles, limited ability to move around, a lack of energy, and appetite changes. Emotional effects of chronic pain include depression, anger, anxiety, and fear of re-injury. Such a fear might limit a person's ability to return to their regular work or leisure activities.

Typically, people who develop a new episode of back pain will experience pain relief within six weeks. Studies report that approximately nine out of ten people with acute low back pain get better on their own no matter what they do or what they don’t do.

Some people with acute back pain may develop chronic back pain. Chronic pain is pain that has lasted longer than three months or pain that has been present for most days over the past six months. In either definition, the pain associated with an injury should have already healed.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

Provide support to manage pain and discomfort (HSC 2003)

1. It is important that we take into consideration, areas other than physical pain and have an holistic approach. Pain is whatever the person who is suffering it feels it to be. Physical pain can be experienced as a result of disease or injury, or some other form of bodily distress. For example childbirth. Although not associated with injury or disease, but can be an extremely painful experience. Pain can also be social, emotional and spiritual as well as just physical.
Having a personalised and holistic approach to a persons pain and discomfort needs good teamwork. E.g. Nurses and care workers may be able to help to support the person with physical pain. 

The physical effects of lack of sleep are quite slight two examples are :- Slight changes in temperature Insignificant changes in heart and breathing rate.
Emotional changes are more noticeable. People tend to become :- irritable or anti-social depressed suspicious, maybe to the point of paranoia difficulty in doing mental tasks. Memory can also be affected by lack of sleep. Also peoples inability to remember things can be affected.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

2. One of the important factors that you need to establish is how much pain the person is feeling. This can be difficult as we all have different pain levels. Several methods have been developed to measure pain but the most common one is to ask the person to describe it on a scale 1 to 10, with 1 being the mildest to 10 being the worst pain they have ever felt. It is about individual experience and you need to react to the level at which that person describes their pain as one persons pain thresholds may be different to another.

One way to assess pain behaviours is to observe them in a clinical setting (although pain is also assessed in a natural setting as the patient goes about his or her everyday activities). Keefe and Williams (1992) have identified five elements that need to be considered when preparing to assess any form of behaviour through this type of observation.

• A rationale for observation: it is important for clinicians to know why they are observing pain behaviours. One reason is to identify ‘problem’ behaviours that the patient may be reluctant to report, such as pain when swallowing, so that treatment can be given. Another is to monitor the progress of a course of treatment.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

• A method for sampling pain behaviour techniques for sampling and recording behaviour include continuous observation, measuring duration (how long the patient takes to complete a task), frequency counts (the number of times a target behaviour occurs) and time sampling (for example, observing the patient for five minutes every hour).

Chronic back pain is not responsive to many of the same treatments, medications, or procedures that are used for acute pain.

Acute pain

  • Less than three months in length
  • Responsive to many treatments
  • Most treatments are harmless

Chronic pain

  • Present for most days over the past six months
  • Unresponsive to many treatments
  • Some treatments may cause harm Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper
It is important to understand your chronic pain

Chronic pain can be complex and frustrating for patients. When doctors don’t explain it well, their patients can get upset thinking that chronic pain is just in their head.

Don’t be misled into thinking there is a magic way to eliminate pain. Be especially careful of people who offer a simple explanation, procedure, medication, or supplement that promises to get rid of your pain.

Nociceptive pain is usually acute and develops in response to a specific situation. It tends to go away as the affected body part heals. For example, nociceptive pain due to a broken ankle gets better as the ankle heals.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

Acute and chronic pain are different clinical entities. Acute pain is provoked by a specific disease or injury, serves a useful biologic purpose, is associated with skeletal muscle spasm and sympathetic nervous system activation, and is self-limited. Chronic pain, in contrast, may be considered a disease state. It is pain that outlasts the normal time of healing, if associated with a disease or injury. Chronic pain may arise from psychological states, serves no biologic purpose, and has no recognizable end-point. Both acute and chronic pain are an enormous problem in the United States, costing 650 million lost workdays and $65 billion a year. The therapy of acute pain is aimed at treating the underlying cause and interrupting the nociceptive signals. The therapy of chronic pain must rely on a multidisciplinary approach and should involve more than one therapeutic modality.

You know what it's like to feel pain. Its unpleasantness can take many forms, whether it's the smart of a burn, the daily ache of arthritis or a throbbing headache. What you might not be aware of is the science behind why you hurt.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

 

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Pain involves a complex interaction between specialized nerves, your spinal cord and your brain. Imagine a complicated traffic system, with on-ramps, different speeds, traffic lights, varying weather and road conditions, a traffic control center, an emergency response system, and more. And the vehicle you're in also makes a difference, because the experience of pain varies from one person to another.

Pain is both physical and emotional. It involves learning and memory. How you feel and react to pain depends on what's causing it, as well as many personal factors.

There are two major categories of pain. Pain can be short term (acute) or long term (chronic):

  • Acute pain is a severe or sudden pain that resolves within a certain amount of time. You might feel acute pain when you have an illness, injury or surgery.
  • Chronic pain is persistent, lasting for months or even longer. Chronic pain is considered a health condition in itself.

With acute pain, you typically know exactly where and why it hurts. Your elbow burns after a scrape or you feel pain at the site of a surgical incision. Acute pain is triggered by tissue damage. Its purpose is to alert you to injury and protect you from further harm.

With chronic pain, you might not know the reason for the pain. For example, an injury has healed, yet the pain remains — and might even become more intense. Chronic pain can also occur without any indication of an injury or illness.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

Causes of pain

At the most basic level, pain begins when particular nerve endings are stimulated. This might result from damage to your body tissues, such as when you cut yourself. Pain can also result from damage or disruption to the nerves themselves. Sometimes pain occurs for no known cause, or long after an injury has healed.

Pain can affect any part of your body. Some of the most common forms of pain are back and neck pain, joint pain, headaches, pain from nerve damage, pain from an injury, cancer pain, and pain-related conditions such as fibromyalgia (a disorder that causes widespread musculoskeletal pain).

Pain from tissue damage

Pain is your body's way of alerting you to danger and letting you know what's happening in your body. You perceive pain through sensory nerve cells. These are the same type of cells that transmit information from your senses, allowing you to smell, see, hear, taste and touch.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

The nerve cells that respond to pain are part of the peripheral nervous system — which includes all of the body's nerves except those in the spinal cord and brain (the central nervous system). Peripheral nerve cells align into a network of fibers that carry messages from skin, muscles and internal organs to your spinal cord and brain. The messages take the form of electrical currents and chemical interactions.

Pain Pathophysiology: Pain has a biologically important protective function. The sensation of pain is a normal response to injury or disease and is a result of normal physiological processes within the nociceptive system, with its complex of stages previously described. There may also be other manifestations of pain related to tissue injury including hyperalgesia, an exaggerated response to a noxious stimulus, and allodynia, the perception of pain from normally innocuous stimuli. Hyperalgesia and allodynia are the result of changes in either the peripheral or central nervous systems, referred to as peripheral or central sensitization, respectively.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

Genetic and environmental factors contribute to sensitization resulting in persistent (chronic) pain in some individuals even after healing has taken place. Nociceptors not only signal acute pain, but when chronically sensitized, contribute to persistent pathological pain disorders from previous injury or ongoing disease. Chronic pain is also characterized by the abnormal state and function of the spinal cord neurons which become hyperactive. This hyperactivity is the result of increased transmitter release by spontaneously active primary afferent neurons and an increased responsiveness of postsynaptic receptors (in part due to phosphorylation of glutamate-activated NMDA receptors). A hyperexcitable state of synaptic transmission at the dorsal horn is further maintained by release of biologically active factors from activated glia. The state of hyperexcitability is aggravated by the loss of inhibitory interneurons involved in the modulation of pain.

Under normal circumstances the nociceptive sensory system returns to a normal functional state as soon as healing takes place. But many features of sensitization persist and are manifest as chronic pain and hyperalgesia, especially when the nervous system itself is injured leading to chronic neuropathic pain. Imaging studies have shown that chronic pain is accompanied by permanent structural alterations in specific brain areas that play a crucial role in nociception.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

Pain is the most common reason patients seek medical care. Pain has sensory and emotional components and is often classified as acute or chronic. Acute pain is frequently associated with anxiety and hyperactivity of the sympathetic nervous system (eg, tachycardia, increased respiratory rate and BP, diaphoresis, dilated pupils). Chronic pain does not involve sympathetic hyperactivity but may be associated with vegetative signs (eg, fatigue, loss of libido, loss of appetite) and depressed mood. People vary considerably in their tolerance for pain.

Pathophysiology

Acute pain, which usually occurs in response to tissue injury, results from activation of peripheral pain receptors and their specific A delta and C sensory nerve fibers (nociceptors).Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

Chronic pain related to ongoing tissue injury is presumably caused by persistent activation of these fibers. However, the severity of tissue injury does not always predict the severity of chronic or acute pain. Chronic pain may also result from ongoing damage to or dysfunction of the peripheral or central nervous system (which causes neuropathic pain).

Nociceptive pain may be somatic or visceral. Somatic pain receptors are located in skin, subcutaneous tissues, fascia, other connective tissues, periosteum, endosteum, and joint capsules. Stimulation of these receptors usually produces sharp or dull localized pain, but burning is not uncommon if the skin or subcutaneous tissues are involved. Visceral pain receptors are located in most viscera and the surrounding connective tissue. Visceral pain due to obstruction of a hollow organ is poorly localized, deep, and cramping and may be referred to remote cutaneous sites. Visceral pain due to injury of organ capsules or other deep connective tissues may be more localized and sharp.

Psychologic factors modulate pain intensity to a highly variable degree. Thoughts and emotions have an important role in the perception of pain. Many patients who have chronic pain also have psychologic distress, especially depression and anxiety. Because certain syndromes characterized as psychiatric disorders (eg, some somatic symptom disorders) are defined by self-reported pain, patients with poorly explained pain are often mischaracterized as having a psychiatric disorder and are thus deprived of appropriate care.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

Pain impairs multiple cognitive domains including attention, memory, concentration, and content of thought, possibly by demanding cognitive resources.

Many pain syndromes are multifactorial. For example, chronic low back pain and most cancer pain syndromes have a prominent nociceptive component but may also involve neuropathic pain (due to nerve damage).

Pain transmission and modulation

Pain fibers enter the spinal cord at the dorsal root ganglia and synapse in the dorsal horn. From there, fibers cross to the other side and travel up the lateral columns to the thalamus and then to the cerebral cortex.

Repetitive stimulation (eg, from a prolonged painful condition) can sensitize neurons in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord so that a lesser peripheral stimulus causes pain (wind-up phenomenon). Peripheral nerves and nerves at other levels of the CNS may also be sensitized, producing long-term synaptic changes in cortical receptive fields (remodeling) that maintain exaggerated pain perception. This process of chronic afferent input causing increased sensitivity (lower thresholds) and remodeling of central nociceptive pathways and receptors is termed central sensitization. It explains why the following occur:Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

 

Allodynia (pain response to a nonpainful stimulus)

 

Hyperalgesia (excessive pain response to a normal pain stimulus)

Substances released when tissue is injured, including those involved in the inflammatory cascade, can sensitize peripheral nociceptors. These substances include vasoactive peptides (eg, calcitonin gene-related protein, substance P, neurokinin A) and other mediators (eg, prostaglandin E2, serotonin, bradykinin, epinephrine).

The pain signal is modulated at multiple points in both segmental and descending pathways by many neurochemical mediators, including endorphins (eg, enkephalin) and monoamines (eg, serotonin, norepinephrine). These mediators interact in poorly understood ways to increase, sustain, shorten, or reduce the perception of and response to pain. They mediate the potential benefit of CNS-active drugs (eg, opioids, antidepressants, anticonvulsants, membrane stabilizers) that interact with specific receptors and neurochemicals in the treatment of chronic pain.

Psychologic factors are important pain modulators. They not only affect how patients speak about pain (eg, in a stoic, irritable, or complaining way) and how they behave in response to it (eg, whether they grimace), but they also generate neural output that modulates neurotransmission along pain pathways. Psychologic reaction to protracted pain interacts with other CNS factors to induce long-term changes in pain perception.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

The body contains specialized nerve cells called nociceptors that detect noxious stimuli or things that could damage the body, such as extreme heat or cold, pressure, pinching, and chemicals. These warning signals are then passed along the nervous system to the brain, resulting in nociceptive pain.

This happens very quickly in real time, which is why people know to remove their hands if they touch a hot oven or take the weight off an injured ankle.

Nociceptors can also be found in the internal organs, although their alarm signals are less easy to pinpoint and may not always be consciously felt.

The information provided by nociceptive pain can help the body protect and heal itself.

What is neuropathic pain
Neuropathic pain is a medical term used to describe the pain that develops when the nervous system is damaged or not working properly due to disease or injury.

It is different from nociceptive pain because it does not develop in response to any specific circumstance or outside stimulus.

In fact, individuals can suffer from neuropathic pain even when the aching or injured body part is not actually there. This condition is called phantom limb pain, which may occur in people after they have had an amputation.

Neuropathic pain is also referred to as nerve pain and is usually chronic.

Many different conditions and diseases cause neuropathic pain, including:Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

  • diabetes
  • multiple sclerosis
  • stroke
  • cancer
  • cytomegalovirus
  • amputation
Diagnosis

Chronic low back pain (CLBP) is a very common complaint, but in 90 percent of cases, doctors are not able to identify a physical cause. Often, some of the discomfort people have from CLBP is neuropathic pain.

A diagnostic test called the "painDETECT questionnaire" was developed to help doctors identify the presence of both neuropathic and nociceptive pain in people with CLBP.

This test is now widely used to evaluate neuropathic pain in many different conditions and diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis.

When doing the questionnaire, a person will be asked to answer 9 questions. Seven of the questions ask them to rate different sensations from their pain on a scale from 0 to 5. They will also be asked how long the pain lasts, rated from -1 to +1, and whether or not the pain radiates, rated from 0 to 2.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

The higher the score, the higher the level of neuropathic pain an individual is likely to be experiencing.

People with diabetes are advised to watch for symptoms of neuropathic pain, particularly in the feet. Neuropathy in the lower limbs is very common in people with diabetes and is a leading cause of amputation.

Neuropathic pain in people with diabetes often begins with numbness, weakness, or burning in the toes. This pain can also get worse at night and make it difficult to sleep.

Location of pain

The most common areas for people to experience nociceptive pain are in the musculoskeletal system, which includes the joints, muscles, skin, tendons, and bone.

Internal organs, such as the intestines, lungs, and heart, can also be subject to nociceptive pain, along with the smooth muscles.

In 2005, it was estimated that there were 1.6 million people who had lost a limb in the United States. Researchers believe that vascular problems, trauma, cancer, and armed conflicts will lead to that number rising to 3.6 million by 2050.

It is estimated that 42.2–78.8 percent of individuals who have had a limb amputated will suffer from phantom limb pain. This kind of neuropathic pain can develop anywhere a limb has been removed.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

Roughly half of all people with diabetes experience diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN), which is nerve pain affecting the feet and hands. The toes are usually the first part of the body to be affected.

People with diabetes can also develop neuropathy in other parts of the body, including the front of the thighs, near the eyes, and the wrists.

Many people with cancer experience neuropathic pain in the back, legs, chest, and shoulders due to tumors affecting the spinal cord. They may also experience neuropathic pain due to medication or surgery.

The lower back is one area where individuals can experience both neuropathic and nociceptive pain.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper Codeine may be used as a treatment for nociceptive pain.

It is important to keep in mind that an individual can experience neuropathic and nociceptive pain at the same time. Paying attention to key differences can improve the quality of life for people dealing with pain and help them get the correct treatment.

As nociceptive pain can develop anywhere on the body in response to heat or trauma, it can have many different characteristics. It is usually most severe at the time of injury, but may also be worse first thing in the morning or during activity,

Treatment for nociceptive pain varies depending on the cause. Unlike neuropathic pain, nociceptive pain frequently responds well to treatment with opiates, such as codeine.

People with neuropathic pain report a variety of symptoms, including:

  • sharp, shooting, searing, or stabbing pain
  • tingling sensations
  • numbness
  • extreme sensitivity to touch
  • insensitivity to heat or cold
  • muscle weakness
  • worse pain at night
Treatment

As with nociceptive pain, one of the first and most critical steps in treating neuropathic pain is treating the underlying condition.

Individuals with DPN should work with their doctor to find medications that help control their diabetes and prevent further DPN. Their doctor may also prescribe treatment to reduce the pain and injuries associated with this condition.

People with neuropathic pain due to cancer may find relief with anticonvulsants, local anesthetics, and antidepressants. Treatment will vary between individuals and the specific cause of their pain.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

Studies suggest that one of the best treatments for neuropathic pain due to phantom limb pain is prevention. If a person receives extensive pain treatment before their amputation surgery, they seem less likely to develop phantom limb pain afterward.

There are many different types of pain in the world. You’ve probably experienced a few different kinds yourself, even if you don’t have a medical condition. For example, achy or sore muscles are common enough, but that’s a very different pain from stubbing your toe or breaking a bone.

You may have heard the terms acute pain and chronic pain used in the medical field. How do acute pain and chronic pain differ?

The differences between acute vs chronic pain are well-established in the medical literature, and these terms have specific meanings. Acute pain is usually the term used to describe pain associated with a direct cause, such as an injury, which lasts a short time. Chronic pain lasts much longer and may not have an identifiable source.

 

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If you’re hoping to treat a pain condition, it helps if you understand the differences between these two types of pain.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

Acute vs. Chronic Pain

The major difference between acute pain and chronic pain, as stated, is the length of time it lasts.

Generally speaking, most medical professionals define acute pain as lasting less than 12 weeks. It is usually associated with an injury or illness, and it often goes away with treatment and healing.

Chronic pain, by contrast, is pain that lasts longer than 12 weeks. It may or may not be associated with an injury or illness. It usually outlasts the treatment period of the initial injury or illness.

Neither term has one, single definition across the medical literature. Chronic pain isn’t particularly well understood either. Since the definition is rather vague, although well-established, what a doctor or other healthcare practitioner considers “chronic pain” may vary.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

When Does Acute Pain Become Chronic Pain?

Acute pain can become chronic pain if it lasts more than 12 weeks. As mentioned above, acute pain often accompanies a medical condition, such as an injury or illness. If the pain associated with a condition lasts after the condition itself has been treated, it may be considered chronic pain.

Chronic pain affects millions of Canadians, and the numbers have been rising in recent years. Chronic pain may arise in cases when an injury causes nerve damage that cannot be healed. The initial injury itself may heal, but the pain lingers.

Chronic pain is also associated with a number of different medical diseases, such as fibromyalgia and other conditions.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

Treating Acute Pain

Acute pain is often treated with strong painkillers over the course of a short period of time. Many of these medications have side effects, which is why it’s best to limit patients’ exposure to them.

Since acute pain is defined as lasting only a few weeks at most, using these medications poses a less serious risk than it does in cases of chronic pain.

Treating Chronic Pain

In a comparison of acute vs. chronic pain, treatment also differs significantly. While acute pain can be treated with strong medications, this isn’t usually advisable for cases of chronic pain.

Since chronic pain can last years or even decades, it should be managed by other means. In some cases, anti-depressants may be prescribed, such as when a spinal cord injury is involved.

To effectively treat acute pain, emergency medicine practitioners must have a thorough understanding of both the pathophysiology and terminology of the pain experience. The pathophysiology of pain is discussed with an emphasis on the mechanisms of acute, inflammatory pain. The various types of pain receptors, pathways and neurotransmitters are also discussed.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

Cigarette smoke, which serves as a nicotine delivery vehicle in humans, produces profound changes in physiology. Experimental studies suggest that nicotine has analgesic properties. However, epidemiologic evidence shows that smoking is a risk factor for chronic pain. The complex relationship between smoking and pain not only is of scientific interest, but also has clinical relevance in the practice of anesthesiology and pain medicine. This review will examine current knowledge regarding how acute and chronic exposure to nicotine and cigarette smoke affects acute and chronic painful conditions. It will cover the relevant pharmacology of nicotine and other ligands at the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor as related to pain, explore the association of cigarette smoking with chronic painful conditions and potential mechanisms to explain this association, and examine clinical implications for the care of smokers with pain.

There are several ways to categorize pain. One way is to separate it into acute pain and chronic pain. Acute pain typically comes on suddenly and has a limited duration. It's frequently caused by damage to tissue such as bone, muscle, or organs, and the onset is often accompanied by anxiety or emotional distress.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

Chronic pain lasts longer than acute pain and is generally somewhat resistant to medical treatment. It's usually associated with a long-term illness, such as osteoarthritis. In some cases, such as with fibromyalgia, it's one of the defining characteristic of the disease. Chronic pain can be the result of damaged tissue, but very often is attributable to nerve damage.

community infrastructure, especially in low-income communities. They ensure vibrancy of communities across the country by investing in human capital, generating economic activity, and spurring secondary spending.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

In this publication from the Opportunity Finance Network, the national association for Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs), Ronda Kotelchuck explains why primary and preventive healthcare are vital ingredients for ensuring individual social and economic opportunity. It is essential if adults are to participate in the workforce and children are to succeed in school. In its absence, illnesses that could be prevented or managed can become life threatening, leading to lost time and productivity, family financial devastation, dependence, disability, and even premature death. Lack of a regular source of primary care forces low-income populations to rely on the most expensive elements of the healthcare system: emergency rooms and inpatient hospital care. The National Association of Community Health Centers estimates, for example, that $18 billion a year is wasted on avoidable emergency room visits.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

Further, the development of health centers improves real property, generates construction jobs, and produces permanent community assets. It also creates new, varied, stable, and well-paying employment opportunities. Health centers hire locally because they value those with knowledge of the community, the culture, and the language of area residents. The healthcare industry offers higher wages than other areas of the private sector, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Moreover, healthcare provides well-defined career ladders, including jobs for lower-skilled clerical, security, and maintenance workers and people entering the field with little or no specialized education or training

Both acute and chronic pain can be debilitating, and both can affect and be affected by a person's state of mind. But the nature of chronic pain -- the fact that it's ongoing and in some cases seems almost constant -- makes the person who has it more susceptible to psychological consequences such as depression and anxiety. At the same time, psychological distress can amplify the pain.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

About 70% of people with chronic pain treated with pain medication experience episodes of what's called breakthrough pain. Breakthrough pain refers to flares of pain that occur even when pain medication is being used regularly. Sometimes it can be spontaneous or set off by a seemingly insignificant event such as rolling over in bed. Sometimes, it may be the result of pain medication wearing off before it's time for the next dose.

Health education builds students' knowledge, skills, and positive attitudes about health. Health education teaches about physical, mental, emotional and social health. It motivates students to improve and maintain their health, prevent disease, and reduce risky behaviors.

Implementation of evidence-based programs (EBPs) for disease self-management and prevention is a policy priority. It is challenging to implement EBPs offered in community settings and to integrate them with healthcare. We sought to understand, categorize, and richly describe key challenges and opportunities related to integrating EBPs into routine primary care practice in the United States.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

As part of a parent, participatory action research project, we conducted a mixed methods evaluation guided by the PRECEDE implementation planning model in an 11-county region of Southeast Minnesota. Our community-partnered research team interviewed and surveyed 15 and 190 primary care clinicians and 15 and 88 non-clinician stakeholders, respectively. We coded interviews according to pre-defined PRECEDE factors and by participant type and searched for emerging themes. We then categorized survey items—before looking at participant responses—according to their ability to generate further evidence supporting the PRECEDE factors and emerging themes. We statistically summarized data within and across responder groups. When consistent, we merged these with qualitative insight.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

The themes we found, “Two Systems, Two Worlds,” “Not My Job,” and “Seeing is Believing,” highlighted the disparate nature of prescribed activities that different stakeholders do to contribute to health. For instance, primary care clinicians felt pressured to focus on activities of diagnosis and treatment and did not imagine ways in which EBPs could contribute to either. Quantitative analyses supported aspects of all three themes, highlighting clinicians’ limited trust in community-placed activities, and the need for tailored education and system and policy-level changes to support their integration with primary care.

Health education curricula and instruction help students learn skills they will use to make healthy choices throughout their lifetime. Effective curricula result in positive changes in behavior that lower student risks around:Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, injury prevention, mental and emotional health, nutrition, physical activity, prevention of diseases and sexuality and family life.

Health education promotes learning in other subjects! One study showed that reading and math scores of third and fourth grade students who received comprehensive health education were significantly higher than those who did not. In general, healthy students learn better. Numerous studies have shown that healthier students tend to do better in school. They have higher attendance, have better grades, and perform better on tests.What are New Hampshire's State requirements for Health education in schools?Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

NH Minimum Standards for Public School Approval (Ed 306.40) and NH HIV and Health Education Law (RSA 186.11 and RSA 189.10) give the New Hampshire requirements for Health education.

What are some of the best practices for schools around Health education?

Best practices in Health education provide skills-focused instruction that follows a comprehensive, sequential, culturally appropriate K-12 Health education curriculum that addresses all of the New Hampshire Health Education Minimum Standards.

Address the following in Health education instruction:

Assessing personal vulnerability to health risk-taking;
Accurately assessing health risk-taking of peers;
Analyzing the influence of family, peers, culture, and the media on health behaviors; and
Connecting with others who affirm and reinforce health-promoting norms, beliefs, and behaviors.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

Allocate funds and release time to support annual professional development for teachers of Health on the following:

Teaching students with physical, medical, or cognitive disabilities;
Teaching students of various cultural backgrounds;
Teaching students with limited English proficiency;
Using interactive teaching methods, such as role-plays or cooperative group activities;
Teaching essential skills for behavior change and guiding student practice of these skills;
Teaching health-promoting social norms and beliefs;
Classroom management techniques, such as social skills training, environmental modification, conflict resolution and mediation, and behavior management;
Strategies for involving parents, families, and others in student learning;
Assessing students' performance in health education;
Medical updates on health information and health trends.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

  • Ensure that Health education instruction focuses not only on teaching content knowledge but on teaching skills, including:

Decision-making, Problem-solving, Accessing reliable health information Goal-setting, Communication, Negotiation and refusal, Assertiveness, and Advocacy skills.

  • Have one or more than one person who oversees or coordinates Health education.
  • Involve parents and families in Health education.
  • Make sure that the Health education curriculum is planned, sequential, and developmentally appropriate to better address all of the health instruction outcomes (required content areas).
  • Provide health information to parents and families through educational materials sent home and involvement in school-sponsored activities.
  • Provide opportunities for Health educators to coordinate instruction with teachers of other subjects and integrate Health into other content areas, particularly Science, Physical Education, and Family & Consumer Sciences.
  • Require that the lead Health education teacher in each school have New Hampshire certification in Health education.
  • Review and update the curriculum on a regular basis - at most, every five years.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

You’ve been in pain for a few weeks now. But do you have acute pain, or do you have chronic pain? Understanding the difference between the two is very important when it comes to talking with your medical provider and planning your treatment and pain-management strategies. In the medical community, pain typically is described as being in one of three phases: the acute phase, continuing to the subacute phase, and persisting into the chronic phase. Note that “continue” and “persist” describe the transition between phases. These are important because they indicate that the pain has not gone away during the progression from acute to chronic pain. Medically speaking, if you have back pain for 4 weeks, but it stops and then comes back a couple weeks later, you might have frequent acute pain, but not chronic pain.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

Referred pain that is perceived in somatic parietal areas other than the site of the primary source of pain is very frequent in clinic as a result of algogenic pathologies in deep somatic structures or viscera (referred pain from somatic and visceral structures). Two types of referred pain are normally distinguished on the basis of the absence or presence of accompanying deep and/or superficial parietal hyperalgesia: (1) referred pain without hyperalgesia; and (2) referred pain with hyperalgesia. These two forms of pain are probably sustained by different pathophysiologic mechanisms: the first is easily accounted for by the phenomenon of convergence-projection. The second can be explained on the basis of both central (convergence-facilitation theory) and peripheral (theory of the reflex arc) mechanisms, as some experimental evidence (on experimental models of referred pain) exists to support both mechanisms. The optimal therapy for referred pain is treatment of the source of the symptom; this implies identification of the site of the primary disease, which may not be easy in all circumstances. If the primary algogenic focus cannot be identified, treatment is only symptomatic, either with generally administered analgesic drugs or with local measures (such as injection of anesthetics in the painful area). Local treatment, however, is only effective in the case of referred pain with hyperalgesia.
Acute pain. This is pain that typically lasts up to 6 weeks and can happen for any number of reasons. Acute pain can be due to physical damage to your body such as a cut, infection, or musculoskeletal injury (such as an ankle sprain). Sometimes, pain can occur for seemingly no reason at all. In the case of low-back pain, up to 90% of cases of acute pain are “non-specific” pain. This means the source of pain could not be identified in a medical exam.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

Subacute pain. When pain continues without a break for 6–12 weeks, it is considered subacute. Like acute pain, the cause might be any number of reasons or no apparent reason at all. If your pain continues longer than 6 weeks and you have not reported it to a medical provider, it’s very important to make an appointment and have your symptoms evaluated as soon as possible.

Chronic pain. When your pain persists without a break for 12 weeks or longer, it is defined as chronic. Such pain can be extremely difficult because it can impact your well-being, mood, ability to do your job, and do normal daily tasks such as getting out of bed and getting dressed. If pain progresses to the chronic phase, it is sometimes more difficult to treat than acute and subacute pain. HPRC provides several resources to help you manage chronic pain.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

In other cases, medical cannabis may be an excellent choice for people managing chronic pain.

Symptom Management and Quality of Life with Chronic Pain

When approaching acute vs. chronic pain, you must also consider management of the condition and quality of life.

Since chronic pain lasts for much longer periods and may never be fully healed, the focus is on managing the pain as best as possible. This means ensuring the patient can still enjoy some quality of life and a reduction of pain.

With the increase in the number of chronic pain cases, it’s important to find more effective ways to manage chronic pain. Medical cannabis could be one of those treatments.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

One of the first symptoms of a heart attack can be pain in the teeth and/or jaws. In the case of a heart attack, the presence of pain in the teeth or jaws doesn't mean that there is any dental condition that needs to be treated, in the absence of any pre-existing dental condition. The experience of dentally related pain during a heart attack is a classical example of referred pain which is pain felt at a site distant from the site of origin. But referred pain can also occur under less dramatic circumstances unrelated to any cardiac pathology. Thus pain referral is frequently found in patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain (for example, temporomandibular disorder (TMD), fibromyalgia, and chronic low back pain). In patients with TMD, for example, muscle and/or jaw joint pain could refer to the teeth and other parts of the orofacial area. Patients and clinicians alike can become convinced that the pain is actually due to some form of dental pathology and there are clinical cases where tooth extractions have been carried out in the mistaken belief that there is a dental cause to the pain. In these circumstances, tooth extractions have no effect whatsoever on the cardiac pain.

How does pain referral arise? Is the patient imagining the pain? Or is there a neural basis for pain referral? Are there any diagnostic tests that can be done to help distinguish pain referral to a tooth as distinct from pain arising in that tooth?Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

Pain referral is, indeed thought to have a neural basis. Specific pathways and neural connections in the brain are thought to lead to the possibility of pain referral. Convergence is one of the important neural phenomena that plays a critical role in pain referral. To understand convergence it is necessary to revise our understanding of how sensory information enters into and is processed in the brain. Information about touch and tissue damage is conveyed as action potentials along specific sensory nerve fibres that have their sensory receptors in the periphery (e.g. muscle, skin, joint, tooth pulp). One group of nerve fibres conveys information about touch and another group conveys information about tissue damage or noxious stimulation. The sensory nerve fibres conveying information about noxious stimuli are called nociceptive nerve fibres. Both the nociceptive and the touch nerve fibres convey action potentials into the brainstem to terminate on second order neurones in the trigeminal brainstem sensory nuclear complex. Once in the brainstem, 2 important things can happen. First, many nociceptive sensory fibres from different parts of the orofacial area can terminate on the same set of second order neurones, for example, nociceptive nerve fibres from jaw muscles, tooth pulps, and skin can all converge onto the same second order neurone. Second, both nociceptive and non-nociceptive (e.g. touch, pressure) sensory nerves can converge onto the same second order neurone.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

The biological reason for this convergence is not totally clear but it appears to be at least part of the reason for referred pain. The second order neurones are part of the pathway that sends sensory information to higher centres for perception. However, since there is so much convergence of sensory information from different body parts onto the same second order neurones, these second order neurones may provide ambiguous information as to the exact location of the noxious stimulus. This neural mechanism is thought to be one way whereby the higher centres of the brain can become "confused" as to the exact location of the noxious stimulus.Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

Another intriguing phenomenon that may help explain pain referral is the unmasking of otherwise silent or latent synaptic connections that may occur with the activation of nociceptive sensory nerve fibres. Upon entering the brainstem, nociceptive afferent nerve fibres branch extensively to terminate on many different second order neurones that are responsible for conveying information from extensive parts of the orofacial area. Some of these synaptic connections are ineffective or latent and action potentials arriving at these synaptic connections under normal circumstances do not result in activation of the next (second-order) neurone in the afferent nerve pathway. It appears that when there is prolonged and/or intense noxious stimulation (for example, muscle trauma or repeated heavy parafunctional clenching), some of these ineffective synapses may become effective connections. Under these circumstances action potentials may be transmitted along pathways that convey information from parts of the orofacial region unrelated to the source of the noxious peripheral stimulus. The brain therefore can become confused as to the correct location of the initiating noxious stimulus. Differences Between Acute And Chronic Pain Essay Paper

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