Chronic Pain. A Resource for Effective Manual Therapy

Section 1 Basic Pain Mechanisms
Chapter 1 Peripheral nociceptive mechanisms
Chapter 2 Spinal nociceptive mechanisms
Chapter 3 Supraspinal Pain Mechanisms

Section 2 Epidemiology, Psychology, Evaluation and Treatment
Chapter 4  Epidemiology of chronic pain
Chapter 5  Psychological features of chronic pain
Chapter 6  Evaluation of chronic pain
Chapter 7  Efficacy of manual therapy for chronic musculoskeletal pain

Section 3 Clinical Presentations of Chronic Pain
Chapter 8  Chronic musculoskeletal pain
Chapter 9  Neuropathic pain
Chapter 10 Chronic Visceral Pain
Chapter 11 Primary headaches and orofacial pain
Chapter 12 Pain in the elderly

 

The effective management of pain is a problem which confronts all manual therapists. This book provides a clear picture of our current understanding of pain mechanisms and shows how that knowledge should inform approaches to treatment. The knowledge of pain science that the book conveys will help the therapist select the best approach to the clinical management of each patient. Different types of pain disorder may require different management strategies which may involve only one discipline or, at other times, a multidisciplinary team which may also include medical clinicians, psychologists, occupational therapists, nurses and other healthcare practitioners as well as manual therapists. The book is divided into three parts:

• An introduction to the concept of pain and its neurophysiological mechanisms.
• A review and discussion of current and potential evidence-based evaluation methods.
• A review and discussion of common types of functional pain disorders. 

This approach provides readers with a comprehensive reference to evidence-based information that should enable them to manage their clients’ pain as effectively as possible.