Pain Assessment : The Critical Mandatory First Step for Effective Chronic Pain Treatment
What is it?
The Pain Assessment is a process of gathering and evaluating information that is needed in order to properly treat any kind of Chronic Pain Condition. Without it, one can only guess and make assumptions at what the appropriate Chronic Pain Treatment Plan for a patient should be.
Is it the same as a Diagnosis?
An Assessment is not the same thing as a Diagnosis. A diagnosis is made by a Doctor and is used to specifically identify an illness, disease, or medical condition. An assessment is a compilation of information that is gathered and evaluated in order to derive an appropriate plan of treatment.
Is the same Assessment used for all parts of the Body?
The same type of assessment is not used for all parts of the human body. A Lower Back Pain Assessment is not the same as a Shoulder Pain Assessment or a Elbow Pain Assessment, but a Fibromyalgia Pain Assessment can consist of all of the above.
What kind of information is included in the Assessment?
The assessment information that is used to develop a treatment plan includes the patient’s Pain Scale, their medical history, an objective observation of symptoms, biomechanical (analysis of body motion and movement) testing, and palpation (analyzing soft tissue by feel).
What is a Pain Scale?
The Pain Scale is defined as the amount of pain that a person is experiencing in a specific part of the person’s body on a scale of 0 to 10, where zero is no pain, and 10 is un bearable pain. 1-4= functional, 5-7=extreme discomfort and difficulty with functionality, 8-9=pain so great that the person is bed-ridden. As part of the Assessment, the patient is given pictures of the human body and is asked to list the specific pain levels on the pictures that give the representation of the patient’s pain.
