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→Assessment of Animal Pain
Assessment of pain in animals is neither easy nor, often, intuitive. Usually, vets make observations of behaviour in order to assess their patients' well-being. They must however bear in mind that pain is a subjective experience that varies greatly between individuals. The expression of pain behaviour is also highly species specific. Pain behaviour is influenced by many extrinsic factors, such as previous conditioning, social dominance and overall health status, which may contort the observations. Finally, since animals cannot verbally describe their pain, bias of the observer is inevitable. Therefore knowledge of an individual's behaviour and the assessor's observational skills and attitude towards pain will influence how pain is assessed and consequently managed.
Assessment of pain in animals is neither easy nor, often, intuitive. Usually, vets make observations of behaviour in order to assess their patients' well-being. They must however bear in mind that pain is a subjective experience that varies greatly between individuals. The expression of pain behaviour is also highly species specific. Pain behaviour is influenced by many extrinsic factors, such as previous conditioning, social dominance and overall health status, which may contort the observations. Finally, since animals cannot verbally describe their pain, bias of the observer is inevitable. Therefore knowledge of an individual's behaviour and the assessor's observational skills and attitude towards pain will influence how pain is assessed and consequently managed.
Pain-associated behaviour differs between species. Physiological variables are useful parameters for giving an indication of pain, but may also be influenced by many other factors such as concurrent disease, stress and drug therepy. They are therefore not reliable measures of pain when used in isolation.
When assessing pain in animals, it is useful to assume that humans an animals are closely related in terms of pain perception and anticipation in order to provide the correct management. Subtle as well as obvious indicators of pain should also be considered, particularly in obtunded animals as invasive procedures, trauma and many medical illnesses may render the animal unable to demonstrate explicit pain behaviour. However, the best diagnostic indicator for pain is response to appropriate [[Analgesic drugs|analgesia]].