Okay, there are varying degrees of pain, from acute to chronic pain. In general, if we experience pain for a long time, we categorize it as chronic pain. According to WebMD, chronic pain is pain that lasts more than 6 months. But, do we really know if what we feel and experience is actually chronic pain? Is self-reporting the only way the medical profession can determine if pain is actually chronic pain? According to the site, ScienceDaily, there could be a scientific way to verify if an individual is experiencing chronic pain.
Progress Reported in Quest to Create Objective Method of Detecting Pain
A method of analyzing brain structure using advanced computer algorithms accurately predicted 76 percent of the time whether a patient had lower back pain in a new study by researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine.
The study, published online Dec. 17 in Cerebral Cortex, reported that using these algorithms to read brain scans may be an early step toward providing an objective method for diagnosing chronic pain.”
Click the link to continue reading this article ===>>> Progress Reported … Method of Detecting Pain
Did you read the article? Pretty interesting stuff, huh? Almost sounds a bit SciFi, but in reality, the scientific and medical community is coming close to finding a method to objectively determine whether an individual has chronic pain or not. Traditionally, a patient’s word was taken as part of the diagnosis, which, unfortunately is subjective in nature. With current advancements in neuroimaging techniques, medical research findings show that lower back pain, for example, is represented by a pattern of structural changes in the brain. As these forms of techniques are perfected, it places less pressure on the patients to provide a self-diagnosis of the “chronic” pain they’re experiencing, and allows medical professionals to determine these case more objectively. This will ultimately result in better diagnosis of the pain the individual is experiencing, leading to appropriate and effective treatment for his/her chronic pain.
