Procedures for chronic pain

Abstract

Pain is defined as an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with or resembling that associated with actual or potential tissue damage.¹ In a nutshell, pain is a subjective conscious construct of the brain in response to a perception of threat. It is influenced by various biopsychosocial factors such as adverse childhood events, genetics, gender, age, etc.^2,3 Importantly, pain must not be confused with nociception.¹ Pain is consciously expressed via emotional, behavioural, and cognitive changes. Nociception is necessary but not always present nor enough to be able to produce pain, because nociception is an unconscious neural processing of harmful stimuli that is expressed through the autonomic nervous system.