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14 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Why is pain a necessary evil? |
It helps prevent further injury and tissue damage, and it teaches us to avoid things that can cause damage. |
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Why is congenital analgesia? What causes it? What are the consequences? |
A genetic condition that results in the inability to feel pain. A mutation in the SCN9A Na channel gene that causes the Na channels in the nociceptors to become blocked; nociceptors can't fire APs and thus an individual with this condition can't feel pain. |
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Do neonates feel pain? And if so, why did physicians not prescribe analgesic medicine for their pain relief for over 100 years? |
Neonates do feel pain, they just express it in a different way than adults do. Physicians did not prescribe analgesic pain because they were under the impression that neonates had high pain thresholds to protect them from the pain of birth |
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Applied: Premature babies can have up to 30 painful procedures. For those born prior to use of analgesics, how might this have affected their anxiety levels as adults. Explain the mechanism. |
An extremely painful and stressful situation early on in life will most likely make an individual have much higher anxiety levels as adults. Lower mineralocorticoid receptors and glucocorticoid receptors. |
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Describe the details of the study by McGraw, 1941? Who did they test? What did they measure? How did they divide participants? What did they find? What does it mean? What were the limitations of the study? |
75 children, 0-4 years old Each were given a painful pin prick and their responses to it were observed. They found that some infants only a few days or hours old may exhibit no overt responses to cutaneous irritation such as a pin prick. Limitation: babies can't express pain the same way as adults, just because they don't exhibit an overt responses to a pin prick doesn't mean they can't feel the same pain adults feel |
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Define hypesthesia. What was the rationale behind hypethesia at birth? |
a decreased sensitivity to stimuli, particularly touch high pain thresholds were believed to protect infants from the pain of birth |
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Define pain |
a stimulus that is unpleasant at both sensory and emotional levels, potentially but not necessarily associated with tissue damage, and is subjective |
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Describe the details of the study by Coghill et al 2003? Who did they test? What did they measure? What did they find? What does it mean? What were the limitations of the study? |
17 healthy adults (21-40 years old) Applied a heat stimulus to all adults and they rated their pain on the VAS (from 1-10) Found that there was a great range of responses, that although it was the same pain, adults can rate that pain anywhere from 1 to 10. This suggests that pain is subjective, and that there can be a lot of error when rating pain levels. |
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What factors contribute to individual differences in pain perception? Describe three. |
sex - males generally have a higher threshold for pain anxiety - the more anxious you are, the higher the pain you will perceive |
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What is VAS intensity? How is it measured? |
A scale used to represent subjective responses to perceived pain intensity - usually from 1 -10, 1 being a low pain and 10 being high, unbearable pain. |
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Describe the details of the study on sex differences in pain perception? What did they measure? What did they find? What does it mean? What were the limitations of the study? |
10 males and 10 females; healthy applied two burns- one at 40 degrees and one at 50 degrees found that males had a lower pain rating at 50 degrees suggests that males have a higher threshold for pain at higher intensities of pain |
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Define measurement error. Explain the negative consequences of either overestimating or underestimating pain in the context of a health care setting. |
the degree to which the obtained pain measured fails to reflect the actual pain experienced patients sometimes may exaggerate pain in order to get a doctor's attention doctors know this and sometimes believe that patients may be "bluffing" as a result, a patient who is truly experiencing intense pain may be ignored by doctors another possible result is that doctors take a patient's pain too seriously, even though they are not in that much pain; this forces other patients who may actually be in pain to have to wait |
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Describe the three non-verbal behavioural cues that convey information about pain. Detail the characteristic features. |
flexor withdrawal response: withdrawing from a painful stimulus right after experiencing it facial expressions: can usually tell by the look on someones face how much pain they are feeling crying |
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Describe the details of the study by Stang et al 1988? Who did they test? What did they measure? What did they find? What does it mean? What were the limitations of the study? |
20 males infants in each of the following 3 groups: control saline lidocaine all underwent circumcision researchers at the time were still debating whether or not neonates felt pain since they knew that neonates could not express pain in the same way adults did, they looked at how long babies in each group spent crying, and blood cortisol levels they found that babies in the lidocaine group spent a lot less time crying, and had signifcantly lower blood cortisol levels throughout the surgery this suggests that although babies could not express pain in the same way that adults did, they still do feel pain |
