The Disease-Based Treatment of Pain

Abstract

Today pain is one of the most commonly reported symptoms by individuals seeking medical treatment. Once thought of as merely sensation, pain has evolved into a complex experience with biological and psychosocial components. Consequently, pain management now represents a multidisciplinary field, which utilizes various medications, techniques, and therapies to address pain’s complexity. In order to fully understand the current treatment approaches, it is important that clinicians understand the modern definition of pain as a disease through knowledge of its history, proposed mechanisms, and varying types. This chapter will provide an introduction to the field of pain management by exploring historical definitions of pain and summarizing the evolutionary theories that have led to today’s view of pain as a biological disease. Equipped with a better understanding of pain’s origin as a disease, this chapter will then highlight the different types of pain and the current treatment modalities used to tackle the multifaceted factors of the pain system.