Pain Pathways And Theories Of Pain

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Pain Pathways and Theories
According to the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), (2016), pain is described as an undesirable sensory and emotional exposure related to actual or potential tissue injury. Pain is a subjective experience and is the most common reason for a person to seek medical help. Pain is a conscious sensation that is picked up by specialized nociceptive neurons and conducted to the Central nervous system (IASP, 2016). Pain is a physiological, emotional, and a behavioral phenomenon (Bordi, 2014). Pain scales help the health care professional to grade the severity and location of pain through numerical and visual methods. McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ) is an elaborate method to evaluate sensory, affective, and cognitive components of pain (Rosenquist & Vrooman, 2013). The Wong-Baker FACES rating scale is designed for children three years of age and older with whom communication may be difficult (Rosenquist & Vrooman, 2013). When assessing patients with pain, psychological, cultural, and environmental factors should be addressed (Bordi, 2014).
Pain Classifications
Classifications of pain are based on the duration of pain and defined as acute or chronic (Macres, Moore, & Fishman, 2009). Acute pain is usually in response to immediate injury, and chronic pain is pain that has lasted over a period of time, and has psychological and behavioral factor (Rosenquist & Vrooman, 2013). Depending on the Pathophysiology, pain is categorized as either nociceptive or non-nociceptive in nature (Bordi, 2014). Nociceptive pain is caused by sensitization of peripheral nociceptors, somatic or visceral. Non-nociceptive pain is the result of damage to peripheral or central neural structures, neuropathic o...

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...s that enter the dorsal horn of the spinal cord, and then cell carries the impulses from the spinal cord up to the brain. The signals produced from the primary afferent stimulation of the skin, and then transmitted into three regions in the spinal cord, the substantia gelatinosa, the dorsal column, and the transmission cells. The gate control theory proposed the gate in the spinal cord is the substantia gelatinosa within the dorsal horn, which then modulates the transmission of sensory information from the primary afferent neurons, then moving to the transmission cells in the spinal cord. Small and large fibers control the gating activity. The small fibers open the gate, whereas the large fibers close the gate. When nociceptor activity reaches a limit and activates pathway, opening the gate shows the pain behaviors and pain experiences (Moayedi & Davis, 2013).

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