York Circle - Chronic Pain After Surgery: Epidemiology, Risk Factors and Preventive Analgesia

Speaker: Dr. Joel Katz, Professor, Canada Research Chair, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health, York University

A little appreciated fact is that every chronic pain was, at one time, acute. And yet, not all acute pains become chronic. Regardless of the cause, the vast majority of people recover and do not go on to develop long-term pain. In the case of post-surgical pain, certain procedures are followed by an alarmingly high rate of long-term discomfort and pain. In this presentation, Dr. Katz will review the epidemiology of chronic post-surgical pain including its incidence/prevalence in children and adults, identify the risk and protective factors for the development and maintenance of chronic post-surgical pain (CPSP) and outline the rationale for preventive analgesia, an anesthetic approach to surgery that may reduce the likelihood of developing long-term pain after surgery. Research points to the severity of peri-operative pain as a risk factor for the development of CPSP. What must be determined is the aspect(s) of pain that is predictive and whether it is a causal risk factor. Is it something about the pain per se, or the individuals who report the pain? Will aggressive management of acute pain alter the course and decrease the incidence of chronic pain? This presentation will address these questions as they relate to the development of chronic post-surgical pain using a biopsychosocial framework.
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