For chronic pain sufferers, it may be smart to let sleeping dogs lie, a new University of Alberta study suggests.
Social Sciences
Oct 16, 2018
0
5395
Dogs which show fear or anxiety when faced with loud or sudden noises should be routinely assessed for pain by veterinarians, a new study has found.
Plants & Animals
Mar 20, 2018
0
1497
Over-the-counter pain relievers, physical therapy, steroid injections—some people have tried it all and are still dealing with knee pain.
Materials Science
Aug 11, 2022
0
1542
A tiny snail may offer an alternative to opioids for pain relief. Scientists at the University of Utah have found a compound that blocks pain by targeting a pathway not associated with opioids. Research in rodents indicates ...
Biochemistry
Feb 20, 2017
12
2827
A team of scientists at Kyoto University's Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS) has developed a novel technique using tiny gold rods to target pain receptors.
Bio & Medicine
Aug 21, 2015
0
51
Molecules in tarantula venom could be used as an alternative to opioid pain killers for people seeking chronic pain relief.
Biochemistry
Apr 14, 2020
0
6380
Fish do not feel pain the way humans do. That is the conclusion drawn by an international team of researchers consisting of neurobiologists, behavioural ecologists and fishery scientists. One contributor to the landmark study ...
Plants & Animals
Aug 9, 2013
12
1
Anyone who has ever bitten unknowingly into a red hot chili pepper remembers the unhappy result – burning, painful sensations that make one's mouth feel as though it has caught on fire. Yet the very chemical that causes ...
Biochemistry
Apr 21, 2015
0
423
(Phys.org)—A combined team of researchers from the U.S. and China has figured out why scorpion stings are so painful. In their paper published on the open access site Science Advances, the team explains how scorpion venom ...
A new analysis of adolescent TV and films on Netflix suggests that too often, it shows misleading depictions of pain, portraying pain as something arising only through a violent act or injury. Instead of trivializing the ...
Social Sciences
Mar 28, 2024
0
47
Pain, in the sense of physical pain, is a typical sensory experience that may be described as the unpleasant awareness of a noxious stimulus or bodily harm. Individuals experience pain by various daily hurts and aches, and sometimes through more serious injuries or illnesses. For scientific and clinical purposes, pain is defined by the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) as "an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage".
In medicine, pain is considered as highly subjective. A definition that is widely used in nursing was first given as early as 1968 by Margo McCaffery: "Pain is whatever the experiencing person says it is, existing whenever he says it does". Pain of any type is the most common reason for physician consultation in the United States, prompting half of all Americans to seek medical care annually. It is a major symptom in many medical conditions, significantly interfering with a person's quality of life and general functioning. Diagnosis is based on characterizing pain in various ways, according to duration, intensity, type (dull, burning, throbbing or stabbing), source, or location in body. Usually pain stops without treatment or responds to simple measures such as resting or taking an analgesic, and it is then called ‘acute’ pain. But it may also become intractable and develop into a condition called chronic pain, in which pain is no longer considered a symptom but an illness by itself. The study of pain has in recent years attracted many different fields such as pharmacology, neurobiology, nursing, dentistry, physiotherapy, and psychology. Pain medicine is a separate subspecialty figuring under some medical specialties like anesthesiology, physiatry, neurology, and psychiatry.
Pain is part of the body's defense system, triggering a reflex reaction to retract from a painful stimulus, and helps adjust behavior to increase avoidance of that particular harmful situation in the future. Given its significance, physical pain is also linked to various cultural, religious, philosophical, or social issues.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
