Cp Case Studies

Pain has been described by the International Association for the Study of Pain Subcommittee on Taxonomy as an unpleasant sensory or emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage (Mersky, 1979). CP persists for an extended period of time, generally more than six months, and is usually associated with tissue damage. In some cases, CP can be traced to a specific injury that has long since healed, such as a serious infection or even a surgical incision. However, in other cases, there does not appear to be an apparent cause, with no prior injury and an absence of underlying tissue damage. Often, CP is related to several conditions, such as low back pain, osteoarthritis, headache,

Exact estimates of the prevalence of CP ranges, though many researchers believe that CP affects 10%–20% of adults in the general population (Blyth et al., 2001; Gureje, Von Korff, Simon, & Gater, 1998; Verhaak, Kerssens, Dekker, Sorbi, & Bensing, 1998). Furthermore, in a review of the literature, Von Korff et al. (2005) estimated a 19% prevalence rate for chronic spinal pain (neck and back) in the United States in the previous year and a 29% lifetime rate. Other reports report that 57% of all adult Americans reported experiencing recurrent or CP in the past year (American Academy of Pain Management, 2003), and of that percentage, 62% of those individuals reported being in pain for more than 1 year, and 40% reported that they were constantly in pain. Furthermore, CP accounts for more than 80% of all physician visits (Gatchel, 2004a,

In a recent review of the literature, researchers found that CP affects over 50 million Americans and costs more than $70 billion annually in health care costs and lost productivity. Researchers used data from the American Productivity Audit, from August 2001 to July 2002, and discovered that 13% of the work force lost productive work time due to a pain condition, and cost employers $61.2 billion a year (Stewart, Ricci, Chee, Morganstein, & Lipton, 2003). Another report estimated that absenteeism from work due to pain costs European economies €34 billion every year (Beubler et al., 2006). It is therefore clear that CP represents a substantial burden on