Acute Pain

Authors
Affiliations

Doctor of Physical Therapy

B.S. in Kinesiology

Doctor of Physical Therapy

B.A. in Neuroscience

Note
  • Welzack Chapter 13 Autonomic, Endocrine, and Immune Interactions in Acute and Chronic Pain

Definition

Problems with traditional acute/chronic classification

Traditionally, Acute vs chronic pain has been defined based on an arbitrary time frame (3mo or 6mo). These criteria do not take into consideration

  • Intensity of pain
  • Severity
  • Nature of its impact on functioning or treatment-seeking behaviors
  • Whether pain must be present every day
  • How frequent it occurs in this interval

New Classification

A new classification was proposed conceptualizing acute and chronic pain on two dimensions: time and physical pathology

Pictorial representation of acute and chronic pain2

Pictorial representation of acute and chronic pain

Acute pain is the physiologic response to and experience of noxious stimuli that can become pathologic, is normally sudden in onset, is time-limited, and motivates behaviors to avoid potential or actual tissue injury. Pain is elicited by the injury of body tissues and activation of nociceptive transducers at the site of local tissue damage. The local injury alters the response characteristics of the nociceptors and perhaps their central connections and the autonomic nervous system in the region. In general, the state of acute pain lasts for a relatively limited time and remits when the underlying pathology resolves. This type of pain often serves as the impetus to seek health care, and it occurs following trauma, some disease processes, and invasive interventions.

References

1.
McMahon SB, ed. Wall and Melzack’s Textbook of Pain. 6th ed. Elsevier/Saunders; 2013.
2.
Ballantyne J, Fishman S, Rathmell JP, eds. Bonica’s Management of Pain. 5th ed. Wolters Kluwer; 2019.

Citation

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