Curing Pain Perception

“Pain is much more than a physical sensation caused by a specific stimulus. An individual's perception of pain has important affective (emotional), cognitive, behavioral, and sensory components that are shaped by past experience, culture, and situational factors. The nature of the stimulus for pain can be physical, psychological, or a combination of both.” (Potter, Perry, Stockert, Hall, & Peterson, 2014 p. 141) As stated by Potter et al, the different natures of pain are dealt with differently depending on many factors. Knowing this, treating pain can be very difficult as there is no single or clear cut way of measuring it; “Even though the assessment and treatment of pain is a universally important health care issue,

According the Department of Health and Human Services, total health care spending in the U.S. reached $2.3 trillion in 2008, or $7,681 per person. As a share of GDP, healthcare expenditures set a new record of 16.2 percent. That’s double the 8.1 percent share of GDP in 1975, and it is triple the 5.2 percent share of GDP in 1960. (Perry, 2010) Last year in 2012, total U.S. health care spending hit $2.807 trillion, or $8,948 per person. (Geisel, 2013) Its rate of increase has been relatively low since 2009, at

According to The World Health Organisation (1999), defined pain as an unpleasant sensory or emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage. Pain is traditionally described as acute or chronic pain. The prevalence of chronic pain (CP) is higher than of acute of pain, as it affects 7.8 million people of all ages in the UK (Chronic Pain Policy Coalition., 2006). The current leading cause of mortality that is accounting for 60% of all deaths is due to chronic diseases and is also a problem as causes an increasing burden on the health care service (World Health Organisation., 2007). CP can affect a person’s quality of life if managed poorly, statistics shows that 25% of people lose their job and 22% leads to depression. (Chronic Pain Policy Coalition.,

Approximately $2.7 trillion is spent annually on health care. That is more than one-sixth of the U.S. economy that is devoted to healthcare and that fraction will continue to grow as the years go on. Regrettably, experts agree that an estimated 20 to 30 percent of the trillions spent goes to inefficient and wasteful care.

Pain is the most commonly reported reason for coming to the hospital in America. It’s causes have a massive variance, and in many chronic cases the root source of pain can not be articulated at all. When a patient reports pain, the role of the nurse, and the whole healthcare staff, is to aim to reduce that pain. In many cases pain reduction can be attained through nonpharmacologic, complementary and alternative methods (CAM). Using CAM to reduce pain is an ideal scenario for both the patient and the healthcare staff as these alternative methods have fewer negative consequential effects.

Health care spending in the United States has taken a toll on the federal financial budget (Minott, 2008; Stone & Hoffman, 2010). According to the National Center for Health Statistics, hospitalizations are costly, accounting for approximately 32 percent of total health care cost, additionally the total national health cost in 2014 was at $ 3 trillion (Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 2016). Reports generated by the Congressional Budget Office (2010), compared the Medicare spending between the dedicated funding and estimated an increase of $518.5 billion to $929.1 billion between 2010 and 2020 (as cited by Stone & Hoffman, 2010). According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), approximately one in five

Despite the fact that pain is universally recognized as a part of the healing process, ways to minimize its impact on patients have not been aggressively pursued. The modern perspective of pain merits the use of painkillers for both short term and chronic pain, but studies suggest that the likelihood of drug dependence increases with the intensity of the pain, extent of drug use, and frequency of drug use. (Elander, Duarte, Maratos, & Gilbert, 2013). Patients may prefer not to use painkillers such as opioids due to debilitating side effects and fear of developing dependence, yet there are few alternative methods taught to patients to help manage pain.

15. Spending for healthcare is estimated to reach some $3 trillion in the U.S. in 2014 alone, although this amount does not currently keep up with the rate of inflation.

Rising health care cost is a nationwide problem in the United States (U.S.). In the U.S., more money is spent on the health care than any other country in the world. In 2012, the overall national spending on healthcare in the U.S. was $2.8 trillion, which is about 17 percent of total economic output (Peter G. Peterson Foundation [PGPF], 2014). Several government organizations predict that the healthcare disbursements are expected to rise to 22 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by the year 2039 (PGPF, 2014). Even though the U.S. has the priciest health care system in the world, it ranks lowest among the other wealthiest nations. There are many underlying causes for the high healthcare costs. Some of the main reasons for upsurges in healthcare

Pain is subjective and identifying pain objectively is very complex. It can influence the patient’s behavior and can negatively affect the patient’s heart rate and blood pressure. When caring for these individuals and attempting to control their pain,

Pain management is an essential component to patient care and nursing procedures. Recognizing the detrimental effects of unrelieved pain, The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JACHO) has recommended standards of pain management, especially with regard to assessment, monitoring and treatment (Harsoor, 2011). Research shows pain too often goes untreated, undertreated, or poorly assessed. In some settings, it has been found that pain has gone undertreated in up to 80% of patients (Walid et al, 2008). Children, the elderly, cancer patients, and postoperative patients are all populations that are at an increased risk for pain and subsequently poor pain management. Pain has a significant effect on a person’s mental status,

This article explained that good pain management is known to produce many benefits for the postoperative patient. However, the article goes on to explain that treating postoperative pain is still a major issue with inadequate postoperative patient pain relief remaining high. The article discussed how the Joint Commission declared pain the “fifth vital sign”. And that the Joint Commission has determined not all pain could be eliminated, but that goal-related therapy may be suitable. The article concluded by explaining that there was a need for evidence-based

Pain is a major and important health care problem across the world. Many disciplines in medical nursing and other health professions spend time, effort, and resources to develop programs that help patients managing their pain. This paper aims to discus and critique “Nurses’ Knowledge and Attitudes About Pain in Hospitalized Patients” by Jarrett, Church, Fancher-Gonzalez, Shackelford and Lofton, 2013.

Pain is something that connects all of us. From birth to death we can identify with each other the idea and arguably the perception of it. We all know we experience it, but what is more important is how we all perceive it. It is known that there are people out there with a ‘high’ pain tolerance and there are also ones out there with a ‘low’ pain tolerance, but what is different between them? We also know that pain is an objective response to certain stimuli, there are neurons that sense and feel pain and there are nerve impulses that send these “painful” messages to the brain. What we don’t know is where the pain

The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage” (1979). Pain is actually the culprit behind warranting a visit to a physician office for many people (Besson, 1999). Notoriously unpleasant, pain could also pose a threat as both a psychological and economic burden (Phillips, 2006). Sometimes pain does happen without any damage of tissue or any likely diseased state. The reasons for such pain are poorly understood and the term used to describe such type of pain is “psychogenic pain”. Also, the loss of productivity and daily activity due to pain is also significant. Pain engulfs a trillion dollars of GDP for lost work time and disability payments (Melnikova, 2010). Untreated pain not only impacts a person suffering from pain but also impacts their whole family. A person’s quality of life is negatively impacted by pain and it diminishes their ability to concentrate, work, exercise, socialize, perform daily routines, and sleep. All of these negative impacts ultimately lead to much more severe behavioral effects such as depression, aggression, mood alterations, isolation, and loss of self-esteem, which pose a great threat to human society.