Difference between revisions of "Pain"
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===Metabolic Effects=== | ===Metabolic Effects=== | ||
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| + | Pain may activate the stress response and hence hormone secretion from the pituitary glands, adrenal glands and pancreas. This leads to substrate mobilisation and catabolism, particularly protein wasting. These effects can impair wound healing, and in the long term result in immunosupression. They can also cause a negative energy balance, giving weight loss or poor growth in young animals. It is important to bear this fact in mind when considering the economics of analgesia in food animal production. | ||
===Cardiovascular Effects=== | ===Cardiovascular Effects=== | ||
==Assessment of Animal Pain== | ==Assessment of Animal Pain== | ||
Revision as of 16:31, 25 February 2009
What is Pain?
Nociception is the process of neurotransmission that transmits and processes information relating to tissue damage. It originates from sensory receptors known as nociceptors. Pain, on the other hand, is a conscious experience arising from nociception. It has previously been described as:
- "An unpleasant sensory or emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage." (International Association for the Study of Pain, 1978).
- "A multidimenstional experience produced from characteristic neurosignature patterns arising from nerve impulses generated by a widely distributed neural network located in the brain. These neurosignatures can be generated independently of somatosensory input". (Melzack, 1999).
Physiology and Pathophysiology of Pain Transmission
Sensitisation
Physiological Effects
Pain has adverse physiological effects, which include metabolic and cardiac effects.
Metabolic Effects
Pain may activate the stress response and hence hormone secretion from the pituitary glands, adrenal glands and pancreas. This leads to substrate mobilisation and catabolism, particularly protein wasting. These effects can impair wound healing, and in the long term result in immunosupression. They can also cause a negative energy balance, giving weight loss or poor growth in young animals. It is important to bear this fact in mind when considering the economics of analgesia in food animal production.