State of Mind Can Turn Acute Pain to Chronic Pain

Colin from Portland has written a very nice article on the differentiation between acute pain and chronic pain today on Hurt.com  Here is a link to the article: Acute Pain vs. Chronic Pain.     

Interesting research coming out of the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pain Medicine.  Based on their most recent research, thoughts of fear, catastrophe, and depression are likely to contribute to acute pain becoming chronic pain.

Sean Mackey, MD, PhD, chief of the pain management division at Stanford University, commented, "Those who had more fear during an acute low back pain episode were much more likely to ultimately over-predict the amount of pain they had, which ultimately led to significant increase in fear-avoidance behaviors, with subsequent worsening of symptoms, increase in duration of pain, and increase in disability."  Also, patients with depression and anxiety are 2-5x more likely to develop chronic pain one to eight years in the future.

 One final interesting statistic is tha there are 34 million surgeries that take place each year.  10% of patients who undergo sugery will develop chronic pain.  That's 3 million additional pain sufferers each year!

 Here is a link to the article: 

AAPM: State of Mind Can Turn Acute Pain to Chronic

Comments

[Barney Nickol]

The mind controls our body. How we move, how we talk, and others. That is why when treating chronic pain, we should also consider setting our mind and stay positive.