Paliatívna medicína a liečba bolesti 2/2010

Prevention of chronic pain

There are some acute pain syndroms, that can pass to the chronic pain. The most of them include a neuropathic element. To some of them, we can pretend of development of chronic pain by using of preventive approaches. The basic predictors are fulfilling of two essential factors: a possibility for prevention appears and the risk for chronicity should be high enough. The following three clinical models fulfilled the criteria: posthoracotomy pain, postherpetic neuralgia and phantom pain following limb amputation. On the basis of own experiences and data in the literature, we discuss the preventive approaches of the treatment of chronic pain.

Keywords: acute pain control as the predictor of chronic pain.