Acute Pain Flashcards
Acute Pain definition
Typically < 3-6 months
Due to tissue damage signaling harm or potential for harm
Serves a useful purpose (adaptive)
Cause of acute pain
Often due to an identifiable cause
Common causes: surgery, acute illness, trauma, labour, medical procedures
Usually nociceptive, sometimes neuropathic
Acute Pain Long Term
May outlive its biologic usefulness and have negative effects
Poorly treated, can increase risk of chronic pain syndromes, including nociplastic pain (maladaptive)
General Presentation of Pain Infants, Dementia
Obvious distress (e.g. trauma)
Children/infants: change in feeding, fussiness
People with dementia: change in eating, ↑ agitation, facial grimacing, calling out
Note mental/emotional factors influence pain perception
↓ pain threshold by anxiety, depression, fatigue, anger, fear, vs. ↑ pain threshold by rest, mood elevation, sympathy
Symptoms acute pain
Sharp, dull, shock like, tingling, shooting, radiating, fluctuating in intensity, varying in location (occur in a timely relationship with an obvious noxious stimuli)
Signs acute pain
Hypertension, tachycardia, diaphoresis, mydriasis, pallor (not diagnostic)
May be no obvious signs
Comorbid conditions not usually present
Outcome of treatment often predictable
Lab Tests/Diagnosis
Pain is always subjective
No specific lab test
Best diagnosed based on patient description/history
Assesment of Pain
Pain management is most effective when validated and accurate pain assessments are carried out
Self-rated pain intensity scales
Adult: visual analogue or numerical rating scale
Child: Faces scale (Bieri or Wong-Baker)
Observational tools
If unable to communicate
PAINAD (dementia), FLACC (>2 months), CHEOPS (>1yr), PACSLAC (dementia)
PQRSTU Assesment
Red flags Back Pain
Referral if any
Yellow Flags for Back Pain
If no contra-indications to self care -
