Defining Pain
Pain is a uniquely personal human experience, which has been defined in many ways.
1. An aversive, personal, subjective experience, influenced by cultural learning, the meaning of the situation, attention and other psychological variables, which disrupts ongoing behaviour and motivates the individual to attempt to stop pain.
2. An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage.
These definitions highlight subjective emotional and multi-dimensional nature of pain experience.
Pain may be acute, like useful biological response provoked by injury or disease. Acute pain will respond to pharmacological treatment. For example, tooth aches, wounds etc. It may also be chronic, which may persist for six months or more. Chronic pain tends not to respond to pharmacological treatment.
