Current Status of Pain Clinics

Abstract

Pain is, without doubt, a major human concern influencing every aspect of life, and the most common symptom which impels patients to seek medical attention. Acute symptomatic pain serves a useful purpose, but in its chronic pathological form, pain is a maleficent force which imposes emotional, physical, and economic stresses on the patient and his family. Diagnosis is often difficult. Chronic pain is the most common disabling disease and thus constitutes a serious national and global health and economic problem. Although accurate statistics are lacking, we have sufficient data to estimate that chronic pain costs society billions of dollars annually in medical services and loss of working capacity due to chronic disability. For example, low-back pain alone cost the State of California $ 200, 000, 000 in 1970 and some of the patients referred to our Pain Clinic have spent over $ 25, 000 in health service and have had as many as 20 to 25 operations (one patient had 42) for their chronic pain, and have been disabled for as long as 10 years.