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Books > Medicine > Other branches of medicine > Anaesthetics > Pain & pain management
This book is designed to focus on the role of Calcitonin
Gene-Related Peptide (CGRP) in health and disease. This peptide,
originally discovered in the 1980s as a sensory neuropeptide with
cardiovascular effects, is now known to play a distinct role in the
pain processing of migraine. The various chapters address the
origin, localization and function of CGRP and its receptor in the
peripheral nervous system, in the cardiovascular system, and in
other tissues and organs. Further attention is paid to the drug
discovery pathway where recent findings show the beneficial effect
of small molecule antagonists of the CGRP receptors for the relief
of the migraine attack and of monoclonal antibodies against CGRP or
the CGRP receptor for migraine prevention.
This book explores pain in a number of ways. At the heart of the
book is an extension of Melzack's neuromatrix theory of pain into
the social, cultural, and economic fields. Specific assemblages
involving varied institutions, flows of capital, encounters, and
social and economic structures provide a framework for the
formation of pain, its perception, experience, meaning, and
cultural production. Complementing the extended neuromatrix is a
second theory, focussed on the propensity of western market
capitalism to seek out new areas of life to subsume to capital.
Pain is one such life area that is now ripe for exploitation.
Although the book has theory at its heart, it draws extensively on
case studies to identify the contradictions and complexities. Case
studies are drawn from accounts of drug use in varied contexts such
as prescription drugs, methamphetamine use, oxycodone use in North
America, and the global rise of the medicinal cannabis marketplace.
It has never been easy to introduce new concepts and therapeutic
in-terventions into surgical practice. When attempting to do so,
one is faced with the interagency of traditional dogma, which still
in this era of evidence-based medicine tends to dominate the
surgical thought pr- ess. This is particularly so in the area of
coloproctology, where prejudice and personal opinion often
influence objective analysis whenever tradition is challenged. A
large body of literature on anorectal prolapse has accumulated over
the years; although much is based on personal viewpoint rather than
scientific evidence, it has nevertheless been passed down through
the generations as ac-cepted wisdom and practice. As a consequence,
it is a challenge to change the mindset of a generation of surgeons
and to introduce new concepts and novel techniques which at first
might appear to be a radical departure from conventional teaching.
It is obviously not possible to present the basis for the
develop-ment of transanal stapling techniques for anorectal
prolapse in this Foreword; this is dealt with in detail elsewhere
in this book. The in-terested reader will have the opportunity to
share in the new and emerging concepts surrounding anorectal
prolapse and to deepen their understanding of the pat- physiology
and basis for surgical correction. Although hemorrhoidal disease
and external rectal prolapse have been known about for centuries,
the understanding of internal rectal prolapse (intussusception) and
rectocele has only really advanced with the emergence of
radiological imaging tech-niques, such as defecography.
This groundbreaking analysis moves our knowledge of pain and its
effects from the biomedical model to one accounting for its complex
psychosocial dimensions. Starting with its facial and physical
display, pain is shown in its manifold social contexts-in the
lifespan, in a family unit, expressed by a member of a gender
and/or race-and as observed by others. These observations by
caregivers and family are shown as vital to the social dynamic of
pain-as observers react to sufferers' pain, and as these reactions
affect those suffering. The book's findings should enhance
practitioners' understanding of pain to develop more effective
individualized treatments for clients' pain experience, and inspire
researchers as well. Among the topics covered: Why do we care?
Evolutionary mechanisms in the social dimension of pain. When, how,
and why do we express pain? On the overlap between physical and
social pain. Facing others in pain: why context matters. Caregiving
impact upon sufferers' cognitive functioning. Targeting individual
and interpersonal processes in therapeutic interventions for
chronic pain. Social and Interpersonal Dynamics in Pain will be a
valuable resource for clinicians who deal in pain practice and
management, as well as for students and researchers interested in
the social, interpersonal, and emotional variables that contribute
to pain, the processes with which pain is associated, and the
psychology of pain in general.
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