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Pain is a universal human experience, but acute and chronic pain has both physical and psychological effects. For that reason the World Health Organisation recognized pain relief as a basic human right. Orofacial pain is seen as particularly damaging - deemed 'inescapable' by its sufferers. This book takes a problem-based learning approach to orofacial pain, focusing on neuropathic trigeminal pain and persistent temporomandibular disorder. Topics covered include symptomology of several types of orofacial pain, pain progression and the psychosocial factors involved in pain. Each chapter includes detailed patient cases illustrating how to identify relevant physical changes and psychometric tests to measure levels of depression, anxiety and stress in the clinical situation. The book aims to enable clinicians to gain a better understanding of patient pain, to reassure the patient that they are understood and to build an effective pain management strategy, recognizing the biopsychosocial nature of pain. Author Information E. Russell Vickers PhD, MDSc (Surgery), MScMed (Medicine), MArt (Painting), BDS, FFPMANZCA is an oral / maxillofacial surgeon and pain management specialist. He graduated in dentistry in 1977 and practices in Sydney. He has worked in the area of orofacial pain for 17 years, initially at the Sydney Dental Hospital pain clinic and since 1992 has worked in a large medically based pain clinic, the Pain Management and Research Centre, University of Sydney located at Royal North Shore Hospital. He is actively involved in orofacial pain education lecturing to undergraduate students, teaches Graduate Diploma and Master degree postgraduate courses in pain management and supervises PhD scholars in the Faculty of Medicine. In the basic science laboratories at the Pain Management Research Institute he develops methods of analytical chemistry using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry for investigating hormones involved in pain mechanisms, local anesthetics, pharmacology and proteomics.
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