PSYC 2301 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Dorsal Root Ganglion, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Chronic Pain

• School: Carleton University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 2301
• Professor: Tarry Ahuja

Document Summary

Two classifications: acute pain (temporary, chronic pain (last longer) Acute pain: caused by soft tissue damage. Chronic pain: linked with long-term illness or disease, may have no apparent cause, can trigger other issues, difficult to assess and diagnose. Types of chronic pain: chronic benign 6 month+, intractable to treatment. Low back pain: recurrent acute pain series of intermittent episodes. Migraine, tmj: chronic progressive 6 month+, increasing severity. Rates are even higher in those over 65, and women. Costs in health care utilization and lost productivity are approximately 10 billion $ annually. Over 4 billion $ spent annually on otc meds. Factors that influence symptoms can include: cultural differences. Some cultures report pain sooner and more intensely. Linked to differences in emotional processing of pain: coping styles. Personal report of pain (acute/chronic) can be very subjective. There is no gold standard in measuring pain outcomes. More commonly used assessment tools include: verbal reports.