ABSTRACT
The goal of intervention for chronic pain must include alleviating the functional impairment that pain produces as well as its discomfort. Very many treatments have been used in patients with chronic pain. Procedures for treating chronic pain sometimes involve either major surgery or the selective destruction of tissues with significant risks of complications. The enduring nature of chronic pain means that the duration of treatment effects can only be assessed in longterm studies. The elderly are often excluded from studies of chronic pain and so treatments cannot be based on sound evidence. The heterogeneous nature of chronic pain populations may result in only a proportion of patients being able to respond to a particular treatment, the effect of which will be underestimated if the whole population is included in a simple parallel design study. Chronic pain must be addressed as a complex biopsychosocial condition.
