Why Effective Pain Management Remains a Challenge

Abstract

Pain is a subjective expression of neural impulses induced by a stimulus with a capacity to potentially damage tissues of the body. Simply put, pain is the reaction of the body to a potentially noxious or noxious stimulus, which threatens the normal homeostasis if unrelieved. Pain can be managed via pharmacological and non-pharmacological means, and pharmacological agents are the most widely accepted means, which have been shown to have variable effectiveness against pain. The barriers to effective pharmacological pain management in clinical practice are discussed in this chapter.