WHY RELIEVE PAIN?

Pain is a major health issue throughout the world. The gap between an increasingly sophisticated knowledge of pain and its treatment and the effective application of that knowledge is large and widening. Both acute and chronic pain is poorly managed for a wide variety of cultural, attitudinal, educational, political and logistical reasons.

Unrelieved pain has major negative effects on the lives of millions of people in our country and is associated with high costs involved in its treatment. Persistent pain and many physical and psychosocial changes and complications associated with it constitute a major health problem. Chronic Pain is now considered as a disease in its own rights.

In India, chronic pain affects approximately 30% of adult population, particularly women and elderly. About 20 – 25% of this population suffers pain from musculoskeletal and joint disorders. Back Pain accounts for another 25-30%. Headache and migraine accounts for about 5% of cases of persistent pain. In only 1-2% of adults with chronic pain does the pain result from cancer. Trigeminal neuralgia, postherpetic neuralgia and other neuropathic pain syndromes constitutes another 5-7% of patients suffering from Chronic Pain.