Pain theories
Pain has been experienced by everyone regardless of age, gender or economic status.Pain is usually described as unfavorable experience that has a lasting emotional anddisabling influence on the individual. Theories that explain and assist inunderstanding what pain is, how it originates and why we feel it are the Specificitytheory, Pattern Theory and Gate theory. In this paper I will attempt to demonstrate myunderstanding of the theories and also will be critically analyzing the theories aboutthe experience of pain by incorporating relevant concepts from literature and relatingPain has been described with a wide range of different words. McCaffery (cited inAdams and Bromley, p192, 1998 ) simply states that the experience of pain as being “what the experiencing person says it is, existing when he says it does”. Thisdefinition by McCaffery strongly indicates that pain is conceived and experienceddifferently in an individualized manner .McCafferys’s definition of pain suggestsexperiences of pain depends only on the person experiencing the pain and that noother person is fully capable to understand how he/she may be feeling as the result of
1994, Pain:Clinical Manual for NursingPractice,Mosby,UK. These soldiers had positive thinking and were distracted because injury meant thatthe soldiers would be allowed to go home or sustain no further injury ( Beecher citedBrannon and Feist , 2000). Descartes (cited in Melzackand Wall ,1984) explained that when someone pulls the rope to ring the bell, the bellrings in the tower. The Specificity theory and Pattern theory are not sufficient in explaining theexperience of pain as the theorists fail to include any psychological aspects of pain. This theorysuggest that there is a strong link between pain and injury and that the severity ofinjury determines the amount of pain experienced by the person (Brannon and Feist ,2000). Melzack and Wall suggested that when pain signals first reach the nervous system,the pain messages are sent the thalamus and the ‘gate’ opens to allow the painmessages to be sent to superior centers in the brain(Brannon and Feist,2000). This rivalary limits the number ofimpulses that can be transmitted in the brain by creating the hypothetical gate(Plotnik ,1999). The gate control theory states that non painful stimulus such as distraction competeswith the painful impulse to reach the brain. The damaged nerve fibres in our bodies sends directmessages through the specific pain receptors and fibres to the pain center, the brainwhich causes the individual to feel pain (Adams and Bromley ,1998). Both Pattern theory andSpecificity Theory are part of Linear model of pain which simply demonstrates thatnoxious stimulus such as tissue damage or injury results in the nerve tissues beingstimulated which causes painful sensation which causes a response or painfulbehavior (Adams and Bromley, 1998). 1998, Psychology for Health Care: Key terms andConcepts,MACMILLAN PRESS LTD,USA. Brannon and Feist (2000) alsoemphasize that this particular theory declines to incorporate how pain is feltthroughout the society.
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