Definition of Pain – Pathophysiology of Pain

00:06 Hello ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to our ongoing series of lectures on Anesthesiology. In this lecture we're going to talk about the Management Of Pain, which is an area of great passion to me and the focus is going to be primarily on Chronic Pain, because we've already covered some aspects of Acute Pain.

00:30 So, our agenda for this lecture are going to include definitions of pain, some of the what we know about the Pathophysiology of pain, the various families of Analgesics that are used to manage pain, the modes of delivery of those different analgesics, and then there are going to be three small case reports, just to give you an idea of how management can vary according to the way a patient presents with pain. And then, because it's a very special area of pain management and, although we've covered it briefly in passing previously, I'm going to spend a little bit more time going over some of the details associated with Management of Obstetrical Pain. So, this is the Oxford pocket dictionary definition of Pain. Strongly unpleasant bodily sensation such as is caused by illness or injury. Mental suffering or distress. It can be a vulgar term as “pain in the neck” or other anatomical areas. Can be great pain, great cares or troubles, 'I have pain'. And it can be a idiomatic verb as “to pain”. To pain somebody, to pain something. In every language there are literally hundreds of descriptors for pain. And this is an indication of how ubiquitous this problem is, and how much trouble we have in trying to describe our discomfort.