Chronic Pain Flashcards
What does chronic mean?
persisting for a long time or constantly recurring
What is pain?
an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage
What is another term for short-term pain?
Acute pain
What is another term for long-term pain?
Chronic or persistent pain
What time period is considered for long-term pain?
6 months or more
What are the 3 different types of pain?
Recurrent, short-term, long-term
What is chronic pain?
Most pain resolves promptly after a painful stimulus is removed and the body has healed, but sometimes the pain persists despite removal of the stimulus; and sometimes pain arises in the absence of any detectable stimulus, damage or disease
What does the holistic model of pain show? (B-TEMP)
Shows how pain affects your life
Behaviour
Thoughts
Environment
Moods
Physical
Explain pain gate theory.
- developed to account for the importance of the mind & body in pain perception
- explains that all sorts of factors influence our experience, including thoughts and feelings
- nerves from all over the body run to the spinal cord - they proposed we can imagine a series of gates into which messages about pain arrive from all over the body
- these gates can sometimes be more open than others
Give examples of pain gate theory
- e.g. you will likely be aware that there are many times, even though you have pain, you are only dimly aware of it
- e.g. pain can feel much worse - the more you think about your pain, the worse it can feel
What kind of factors affect opening and closing of pain gates?
- Stress & Tension
- Psychological factors
- Lack of activity
What is central sensitisation?
- condition of the CNS that is associated with the development & maintenance of chronic pain
- CNS goes through a process called ‘wind up’ and gets regulated in a persistent state of high reactivity
- persistent state of reactivity lowers the threshold for what causes pain and subsequently comes to maintain pain even after the initial injury might have healed
What are the 2 main characteristics of central sensitisation?
Allodynia & Hyperalgesia
What is Allodynia?
occurs when an individual experiences pain with things that are not normally painful.
nerves in the area are sending messages to a brain which is in a state of heightened reactivity - producing a sensation of pain and discomfort
What is Hyperalgesia?
occurs when a stimulus that is typically painful is perceived as more painful than it should be.
heightened reactivity produces pain that is amplified
What psychological factors are there for chronic pain?
Expectation and anticipation
How does expectation and anticipation cause chronic pain?
- beliefs and interpretations influence our emotions and behaviour - not just the objective characteristics of an event
- people with negative beliefs about their pain can experience greater suffering
What is the primary appraisal?
where an event is evaluated in terms of its threat to wellbeing i.e. we allocate meaning
What is the secondary appraisal?
Questioning how you are able to cope with the level of threat.
What are cognitive appraisals?
the belief and ideas that create our meaning of things & hence contribute significantly to our perception of pain
What are cognitive errors/
such as catastrophising can contribute to the distress and disability associated with pain
What is the avoidance cycle?
- pain
- ‘i should rest’
- ‘there’s no explanation for my pain so I can’t control it’
- maladaptive coping - mood + decrease in activity
- more pain when trying to exercise
- reinforcing beliefs and continuing