Approach to the Patient with Headache
INTRODUCTION Print Section Listen Among the complaints from patients presenting to outpatient practices, headache is one of the most common. Even the most experienced providers often have a difficult time…
Psychological Aspects of Chronic Pain
INTRODUCTION Print Section Listen Pain is a complex, perceptual experience, defined as an “unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of…
Management of Difficult Patients in the Chronic Pain Setting
WHO ARE DIFFICULT PATIENTS? Print Section Listen There are patients in every practice who give the doctor and staff a feeling of “heartsink” every time their names are seen on…
New Prospects for Alleviation of Anger in the Context of Chronic Pain
CONCEPTUALIZATION OF ANGER Print Section Listen WHAT IS ANGER? Anger has been defined with different shades of emphasis, but in psychology, there is general agreement that anger is a subjective…
The Placebo Effect in the Clinical Setting: Considerations for the Pain Practitioner
INTRODUCTION Print Section Listen “The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals.”—Sir William Osler BACKGROUND Print Section Listen Henry Beecher’s classic 1955 study…
Work Disability and Chronic Pain: A Review of Psychosocial and Environmental Factors
INTRODUCTION Print Section Listen Disability and chronic pain commonly co-occur, particularly in the case of diagnoses with controversial etiologies. When disability impacts work, the contributory factors become even more complex,…
Chronic Pain, Disability, and Interdisciplinary Rehabilitation
INTERDISCIPLINARY CHRONIC PAIN REHABILITATION Print Section Listen Patients with chronic pain suffer dramatic reductions in physical, psychological, and social well-being with health-related quality of life rated lower than those with…
Psychosocial Assessment of Chronic Pain
INTRODUCTION Print Section Listen Why does one patient develop chronic pain and face disability, while another—with seemingly the same injuries, extent of tissue damage, and quality of medical care—recovers and…
Evaluation for Opioid Management in Chronic Pain
ABSTRACT Print Section Listen Opioid analgesics provide effective treatment for noncancer pain, but many physicians have concerns about adverse effects, tolerance, and addiction. Misuse of opioids is prominent in patients…
When Psychotherapy Is Indicated in the Management of Pain
INTRODUCTION Print Section Listen When the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) arrived at a definition of pain that included the “emotional experience,” as well as the “unpleasant…
