News Release
April 21, 2000
News Release
Breakthroughs in Pain Management May Help Millions
Millions of people suffer from chronic or intractable pain. As many as 89% of Americans are in pain at least once a month. As Pain Management Week, April 24th to 28th, arrives it is important to recognize the severity of the problem and the developments that are being made in treatments.
According to a survey, 46% of American women and 37% of men experience pain daily. Of these, only half visited a doctor for pain within the last three years. Forty-three percent of respondents said pain keeps them from doing simple activities such as standing for long periods of time; 27% responded that they missed work in the past year due to pain. Eighty percent believe aches and pains are just a part of getting older, and 28% believe there is no solution, the survey found.
"Like many illnesses that at one time were not well understood, pain and its many manifestations may be poorly treated and seriously underestimated," according to Dr. Daniel Gruener, MD Friends Hospital. "Inappropriately treated pain seriously compromises a patient’s quality of life, causing emotional suffering and increasing the risk of lost livelihood and social interaction. Severe chronic pain, in both the pediatric and adult population, can lead to mood disorders including depression."
Each physician bears the responsibility to evaluate and treat persistent pain as a serious medical condition. The Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Hospital and Health Care Organizations just recently began requiring all hospitals to demonstrate some form of pain management program for patients and to provide educational services to all staff. "The good news is there have been a number of recent discoveries that explain how people feel pain that could lead to new treatments," says Gruener.
One of the most promising developments in recent years is the discovery of chemical receptors in the brain that respond only to specific types of pain. A study that used brain scans of patients as they touched something hot, showed that pain arises in the brain area responsible for emotion, as well as in the region that processes normal touch sensations. In some cases, people may be able to change how their brain interprets sensations that normally would be painful.
There are also great breakthroughs in medication for pain management as the use of narcotics becomes more widely accepted to control pain. Researchers are also about one to two years away from the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of medications that would alleviate or eliminate pain associated with nerve damage.
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