PAIN CLINIC: OVERVIEW
While a tremendous amount is known about the mechanics of pain compared with twenty years ago, the specialised pain team still has to find devices which will accurately give an idea of how to assess pain in any particular individual.
Data is collected through the visual analogue scales described earlier in this book and the McGill pain questionnaire of Melzack and Torgerson. Pain teams everywhere are getting much better at assessment but this is made more difficult as experimental and clinical pain are not the same.
And as pain is an individual experience it is virtually impossible to categorise it.
Following up
Successful as modern pain clinics are at helping so many people manage their pain, a major drawback is that they do not have the resources to make long-term assessments. A research assistant would need to work full-time for the preparation of information and with the project taking up to two years. Yet, this is petty cash compared to the huge sums it would save federal and state governments and the insurance industry.
Such a statistical analysis would precisely define the problems and allow policies to be devised to keep the modern epidemic of pain complaints to an absolute minimum.
The present vague ideas by officialdom about how to combat pain are largely educated guesses. Australian taxpayers are paying dearly for this statistical fog about the numerous preventable, acute and chronic pain complaints.
Little is being done about the overwhelming need to find answers to minimise the epidemic of pain complaints, most of which are avoidable — everything from chronic headaches to disabling lower back pain and RSI.
The several thousand new patients Australian pain clinics see every year have the sort of information which, if available in their medical records, could be available through later studies.
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