Chronic Pain Management
"Around a million Australians who might normally enjoy productive lives struggle with persistent or chronic pain. The pain can interfere with their daily lives and can be so extreme that it can sometimes result in suicidal thoughts or actions." Dr Christine Bennett, MBF's Chief Medical Officer.
What is persisting or chronic pain?
Information courtesy of the Pain Management Research Institute
- An estimated 1 in 5 Australians suffer persistent pain, that is, pain that continues for more than 3 months.
- People from all walks of life can suffer from persistent pain, including children and the elderly.
- The most common causes of persistent pain are injury, arthritis, other musculoskeletal conditions, headache, cancer-related pain, post surgical persistent pain and non-specific low back pain.
- It is common for persistent pain to have no formal diagnosis.
- When pain is brief or short-term, it acts as a warning for the body to seek help but when pain persists it serves no useful purpose and can go on to cause severe physical and psychological problems.
- In these cases pain itself becomes the problem and is called a disease.
There are 3 different types of severe pain including:
- Acute pain: usually, but not always, of short duration, for example, after surgery, injury, burns or other short-term episodes.
- Severe persistent pain: pain that lasts for more than 3 months, despite attempts to diagnose and treat an underlying cause. There are over 300 conditions that may lead to persistent pain, such as 'shingles', amputation, severe burns, spinal cord injury, low back or neck injury, surgery of various types as well as many other causes.
- Cancer pain: many different problems in patients with cancer can cause severe pain. Some cancer pain is acute and some is persistent especially if nerve damage has occurred.
For more information on managing chronic pain you can also go to in2life’s recent article ‘Living with it’
General Statistics
- Persistent pain is one of the top emerging health problems of the new millennium along with obesity and mental health.
- Pain has been estimated to cost the community 36.5 million lost working days each year and is one of the most costly health care problems facing Australia. 1
- It is possible to effectively manage 70-80% of patients suffering persistent pain but as few as 10% of those affected are getting adequate treatment. 2
- At least 50% of patients who do get access to effective treatment for their persistent pain get back to a reasonable lifestyle. 2
MBF's Positive Health Programs
Two of MBF's new Positive Health Programs focus on how to better manage chronic back pain and arthritis. These Positive Health Programs have been created using the latest evidence based medicine and research. For more information please see:
The MBF Foundation recently announced a major study into the true costs of persistent pain, the implications of those costs to the healthcare system and community, improvements that could be made to treatment and the cost implications of such improvements. A final report with key recommendations is due by October 2007.
1 Pain Management Research Institute
2 Professor Cousins, Director Pain Management Research Institute