Chronic Pain Assessment and Possible Treatments

Introduction

Pain is defined as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage” (12). Neuropathic pain is solely linked to damaged nerve or the nervous system. Similarly, Nociceptive is often an acute pain caused by a physical pressure or an inflammation which is detected by a nociceptor. Chronic pain can be perceived as a disease itself as it is an amalgam of nociceptive pains (such as visceral, somatic and chemical) and psychogenic pain that triggers or develops to a be persistent chronic pain. Hence it is pragmatic to acknowledge the strong correlation between nociceptive, psychogenic to chronic pain as one might trigger the other. It is also better to acknowledge and accept that some widespread, unidentifiable chronic pain is caused and generated by the central nervous system.Chronic Pain Assessment and Possible Treatments

Moreover, assessing chronic pain has been a challenge and almost philosophical to scientist, pain researchers, patients and the public. This is because it is much easier to assess chronic pain as an output caused by a stimulus or an injury which is externally controlled by the peripheral nervous system. It becomes strenuous to peruse and denominate a cause to chronic pain that does not stem from damaged tissue nor a physical injury. Consequently, our study comprises of healthy subjects wearing a virtual reality headset responding to videos of a patients who show a visible chronic pain; as well as having a patient with chronic pain responding to healthy subject reaction or exposure to them. This allows us to explore and correlate the activation of the pain matrix in a health subject to a person experiencing chronic pain such as Fibromyalgia and arthritis. Both of these chronic pains are neither neuropathic nor nociceptive which makes them useful in exploring their potential causes. This is also useful in showing the foundation of chronic pain and its stimulation in the brain from the early stage, hence design treatment which reverses this brain stimulation.