What is pain?
Pain is a distressing sensory or emotional experience associated with intense or damaging tissue structural damage
Acute pain generally lasts for 1-2 months, resulting from injury and while the tissue is healing.
Chronic pain lasts for more than 3 months, after healing should have occurred.
- Sometimes there is ongoing tissue damage: e.g. arthritis, cancer, nerve damage
- More often there is no detectable tissue damage but there is ongoing activity in the tissue damage-warning nerves in the spinal cord and brain
The chronic pain sufferer can become debilitated due to fear of moving and/or distressed about not being able to function.
The cost of pain
In 2018
0
m
Australians lived with chronic pain. This is set to rise to 5.23 million by 2050
0
%
also live with depression and anxiety
$
0
b
The annual cost of associated lost workdays and healthcare to the economy
0
m
Projected prevalence of chronic pain by 2050
