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Treatment: Conservative Therapy:
- Bedrest
- Hot/cold compresses
- Gentle flexion/extension exercises
- Spinal Traction
Pharmacologic Therapy:
- Analgestic
- Anti-inflammatory
- Anti-spasmodic medications
- Epidural steriod injections
Chronic Pain - What is
it?
- The most serious disability disease of humans
- Pain is not the same as symptom, but pain = disease
- Pain that doesn't go away may lead to:
- narcotic addiction
- expensive disability
- ill-advised surgery of questionable value
Pain depends on the evaluator's learning experience or speciality
to:
- neurologists or neurosurgeons, pain is a result of a
neurophysiologic abnormality
- a psychiatrist or psychologist, pain is an emotonal affect
resulting from internal emotional conflicts.
- behaviorists, pain may be considered as a manipulative
phenomenon
The interpretation of pain by the patient and by the
observer as well as the methods of treatment remain as varied as are the concepts of pain.
Noxious irritation of tissues plays a major role in many painful conditions that initiate
the remaining mechanism. |