Pain Management: Techniques

Pain as an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage or described in terms of such damage [1]. Pain is an unpleasant situation which an individual experience which seem to have a negative effect on his/ her total wellbeing. Pain management is the process of curtailing the adverse effect of a pain or reducing or surmounting a particular pain experienced by an individual. Pain is an individual and Subjective experience modulated by physiological, psychological and environmental factors such as previous events, culture, prognosis, coping strategies, fear and anxiety [2,3]. The concept of pain management has varied meaning to different people in different human endeavour. Pain management can be also known as pain control. Pain management is the act and process of remedying a particular pain which an individual is experiencing. In counselling it can be seen as the process of offering an advice to client by a counsellor with the view of the client surmounting a particular emotional pain or otherwise, he/she is experiencing. It is a practical process of adopting soluble means to stop an ugly situation one is passing through which may be physical or psychological in nature. Pain management can also be seen as a therapy means in which a person is helped to remedy a given pain.

In the medical profession, pain management is the adoption of prescribed health tactics to lessen or surmount a particular pain which a patient is suffering from. According to [4] pain management is a medical approach that draws a disciplines in science and alternative healing to study the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of pain. According to [5] pain management is also referred to as pain medicine or pain control or algiatry, is a branch of medicine employing an interdisciplinary approach for easing the suffering and improving the quality of life of those living with chronic pain. In this perspective, pain management is simply a multidisciplinary process of utilizing health strategy for a better living. [6] submitted that pain is an unpleasant sensation in animals that is caused by actual or perceived inquiry to body tissues and produce a physical and emotional reaction. The process of pain management involves the curative, preventive, therapeutic and diagnostic. The pain management process often involves a number of assistance from different professional individuals in the health sector. These professional individual includes doctors, dentists, physiologists, and surgeons among others aids the management process through giving of meaningful information to patients experiencing a particular pain. On the part of the patients, he/she is expected to utilize every bit of the information by taking proactive steps in following the prescriptions. Pain management are often done for two kinds of pain.

Pain Management for Non-severe or Complex Pain: This kind of pain management is often the over-the-counter (OTC) kind. In other words, it requires less emphasis on profession health practitioner. The patient tends to treat himself/herself based on proven knowledge of the pain. That is, patients know the remote cause and cure or treatment to remedy the pain. In developing countries and less developed countries of the world, patients are often predisposed to non-severe pain management.

Pain Management for Chronic, Acute or Severe Pain: Chronic or severe pains are extreme kinds of pain that affects total wellbeing of an individual/patient. Hence, due to it extreme nature, its management requires the attention of a professional practitioners that would assist the patients suffering from such pain with prescribed vital information. Acute pain is the most common reason why patients seek medical attention [2,7]. These profession prescription or information as the case may be, will assist the patient in preventing, diagnosing and treating of a besting pain. This pain management process is overseeing by a profession practitioner in terms of monitoring/ supervising the health condition of the patients who is diagnosed of the pain and gives possible prescription when the need arises.

Counselling technique

Counselling is a helping profession in which a person (counsellor) helps another person (client/counsellee) with the aim of providing solution insight to a particular problem facing the client. According to [8] counselling takes place when a counsellor sees a client in a private and confidential setting to explore a difficulty the client is having, distress they be experiencing or perhaps their dissatisfaction with life, or loss of a sense of direction and purpose. It is an absolute relationship between a superior authority (counsellor) and a subordinate authority (counsellee) in which the client is expected to pay prior loyalty to the superior authority, by yielding the advice of the counselor so as to solve some emotional, social education, behaviour, marital and other problems that often arise in any path of one’s life. In counselling techniques, an individual that is experiencing pain ranging from psychological, emotional education, marital, physical and marital among others are expected to approach a counsellor who will advise them on the ways such pain could be remedy. In the process of counselling, the counsellor is expected to adopt enquiry or discussion method so as to eliciting some desire outcome from the client. Chronic or non-severe pain and its physical limitations have great psychological and emotional effects on a person. Living with pain can lead to problems such as depression, anxiety and helplessness, all of which can exacerbate pain and disability [9]. This technique is based on coherent relationship between the parties concern (counsellor and counselee(s)) for it to yield the expected result. This will assist him (counsellor) to know the kind of pain which his client has in order to proffer possible management solution insight to the client. Counselling technique is both client and counsellor centered. In other words, it takes into prior attention the pain of the client with the aim of remedying it through meaningful advice to the client by a counsellor. The clients are predisposed to explain or brief the counsellor on the emotional, physical, social, education problem which tends to induce pain to them. The counselling technique involves an open mindedness and confidentiality of the parties concern.

Medical techniques

This involves medical practices to remedy an individual(s) pain. In this technique, people have a besetting pain approach a medical practitioner with the aim of diagnosing the pain he/she is having. These medical practitioners range from doctors, dentists, surgeon, and pharmacists among other) could prescribe a particular type of treatment to the person so as for him to recover from such pain. The prescription can be in the form of medicine or surgical form. The medicine form involves a doctor, dentist referring an individual to pharmacist to purchase a set kind of drugs or directly issuing of a particular drug to an individual so as to be relieve of a particular pain, while the surgical form involves a surgeon carrying out a surgical operation on a patient based on the prescription/recommendation of a dentist, or doctor. This is done with the aim to terminating the pain. In developing and less developed countries of the world, medicine a techniques is very common were an individual/ patient walk to a nearby pharmaceutical drug store as the case may be with the aim to purchase a particular drug to treatment a given pain.

Exercise

Exercise is a vital means of improving an individual health condition. It can be seen as a free launch to alleviating a given health challenges facing an individual. In other words, the opportunity cost of exercise in monetary term is zero. Over the year, exercise has been proven to be very effective to aggregate health of an individual in a given society. Commonly adopted exercise by people includes running, jumping, walking over distance, cycling, juggling, lifting weights and press-up among others. Patients or individuals having pain can resort to regular exercise usually in the morning and evening, this will overtime helps them in recovering from the pain.

Pain management is one of the most pressing issues that attention is often directed toward in developing and less developing countries as compares to developed countries. Despite this fact most patients in developing; less developing; and developed countries are not aware of suitable techniques for pain management. The study gives the overview involve in pain management. The researcher wish to opine that if practical techniques as identified in this paper are adopt by patients their pain would be effectively managed, which will help them in healthy living and raise the health sector performance. Based on the study it was recommended that.

A. Stakeholders should intensify effort in awareness campaign among citizen of a given country. This will help in enlighten people.

B. Patient centered health system should be adopted. This will help to ensure that patient’s pain management process will be of utmost attention to stakeholders involves in pain management practices.

Social health/counselling service should be encouraged by government and relevant stakeholders. This will assist patients/ people who has pains to have easier access to the needed help.

1. International Association for the Study of Pain (1994) Classification of chronic pain (2nd edn), Part III: Pain terms, A current list with definitions and notes on usage. IASP Press , Seattle, USA, pp. 209-214.
2. National Pharmaceutical Council (2001) Pain: Current understanding of assessment, management, and treatments.
3. Republic of Rwanda (2012) Pain management guideline. Ministry of Health: Kigali, Rwanda.
4. Veritas Health (2017) Pain management/pain management definition.
5. Wikipedia (2018) Pain management.
6. Helm S (2013) What is pain management?
7. Campbell, JK, Penzine DB, Wall EM (2000) Evidence-based guidelines for migraine headache: Behavioral and physical treatments. The US Headache Consortium, American Academy of Neurology, USA.
8. British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (2006) What is counselling?
9. Australian Physiotherapy Association (2016) Pain management.