Comfort And Pain Flashcards
Ability to endure the discomfort from pain
Pain tolerance
Varies from low to high
Point at which pain sensation becomes noticeable
Pain threshold
Thought to be the same among healthy persons
Pain is what kind of sensation
Demanding
What kind of emotions are accompanying with pain
Anxiety and fear
The body does not do what to pain as it does to heat or odors
Adapt
Responses to pain may be
Physical or emotional
Type of pain that is less than 6 months with anticipated and predictable ending
Pain meds Vicodin morphin Demerol
Acute pain
More than 6 month without anti payed or predictable ending. Does not respond to pain meds
Chronic pain
Remember you need to treat pain right away! Why?
Because, it takes more medication to treat pain that is out of control then it is less severe
Intermittent pain
Pain comes and goes
Can be acute or chronic
Pain felt In a location and it radiates out or down an extremity some distance from the source
Radiating
Intractable
Constant pain that cannot be easily relived
Associated with no cure
( patients with cancer )
Psychogenic
Pain having mental as opposed to organic origin
Phantom pain
Pain felt in a body part that is no longer present
What is the gate control theory
Synapses in the dorsal horns act as gates that close to keep impulses fro reaching the brain or open to permit impulses to ascend to the brain
Noci
A combining form indicated pain or injury
Nocirepters
Are free nerve endings that sense and respond to potentially noxious thermal electoral mechanical or chemical stimuli
Type a fibers
Bright and intense Large mylinated (fast transmitting) First pain sensation
Type c
Dull
Small unmyelinated ( slow transmitting)
Carry potentially painful impulses
Type b
Stimulated by heat cold and touch
Travels through the same dorsal horn gate as C fiber
Increased activity stimulates the closing of the gate in the dorsal horn which will also block the pain impulses on c- fibers
