Article about chronic pain
 

I found this article interesting - it is a commentary on new ways of treatment of chronic pain.

BBC - Future - Why pain is so hard to measure – and treat.

Thanks kiwi for this article - interesting read and a useful summary of where pain assessment and treatment are at.

I have a grumble with one aspect which was discussed where the researcher Tracey "Queen of Pain" from the University of Oxford references neuro-imaging (aka functional MRI), to assess pain. The reality is that the average patient will never get access to that particular diagnostic tool as it is usually only available in a university research facility and not in a typical clinical setting - if one is even fortunate enough to be able to get referred to a neurologist in a public health system - there is such pressure on limited resources that the assessment of pain is often perfunctory.