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Pain and Anxiety
Pain has the ability to rob people of life's enjoyment, to disrupt relationships, cause career disturbances and generally leave someone in a depressed state of mind. Often, physicians try to alleviate chronic pain with medications that may be sedating or have side effects that make them trade-offs in terms of what can happen with long-term use.
The incidence of pain is of such concern that new attention is being paid to it as we see the growth of pain management centers and healthcare professionals trained to work with pain patients. Even psychologists have been brought into this area of healthcare because a strong relationship has been found between two things: anticipation of pain because of lack of control of pain medication and anxiety related to pain.
Since higher levels of anxiety appear to be related to the experience of more pain, relaxation techniques are being increasingly used to lower anxiety levels and, thereby, lower pain. Studies of pain as it related to patient control over pain have also proven that when a patient is responsible for their pain medication, they use less of it than when professionals are responsible. I've seen this myself in surgical patients who were given control over a pump that provided pain medication. The patient could pump the medication at will, within limits, and did require less medication.
Remember, when a patient anticipates the pain that will come when the medication wears off in three to four hours, unless an analgesic patch is used, they begin to have increasing levels of anticipatory anxiety. This, then, feeds back to the muscles and an increase in tension may be the culprit here.
So, for adequate pain relief, at all levels, I believe that patients deserve to be treated with relaxation techniques of any type, be it biofeedback, self-hypnosis, relaxation breathing or whatever works for them. It is the only way to treat pain patients in a humane way.
Related Topics:
Study: Treat Depression, Pain, Separately, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Pain Management
The incidence of pain is of such concern that new attention is being paid to it as we see the growth of pain management centers and healthcare professionals trained to work with pain patients. Even psychologists have been brought into this area of healthcare because a strong relationship has been found between two things: anticipation of pain because of lack of control of pain medication and anxiety related to pain.
Since higher levels of anxiety appear to be related to the experience of more pain, relaxation techniques are being increasingly used to lower anxiety levels and, thereby, lower pain. Studies of pain as it related to patient control over pain have also proven that when a patient is responsible for their pain medication, they use less of it than when professionals are responsible. I've seen this myself in surgical patients who were given control over a pump that provided pain medication. The patient could pump the medication at will, within limits, and did require less medication.
Remember, when a patient anticipates the pain that will come when the medication wears off in three to four hours, unless an analgesic patch is used, they begin to have increasing levels of anticipatory anxiety. This, then, feeds back to the muscles and an increase in tension may be the culprit here.
So, for adequate pain relief, at all levels, I believe that patients deserve to be treated with relaxation techniques of any type, be it biofeedback, self-hypnosis, relaxation breathing or whatever works for them. It is the only way to treat pain patients in a humane way.
Related Topics:
Study: Treat Depression, Pain, Separately, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Pain Management
