Characterized by clarity and straddling the line between scope and depth of information, this concise book provides physicians a comprehensive overview of pain medicine. Chapters are written by some of the leading minds in pain medicine and feature case studies, key points and suggested readings. Multidisciplinary approaches to the clinical and financial challenges of pain with the goal of improving patient quality of life are also discussed. Additionally, the book is in is in tight alignment with the information that trainees are expected to master for the American Board of Anesthesiology's pain medicine subspecialty certification, as outlined by the Joint Council on Anesthesiology Examinations; it covers the diagnosis of pain states, the management of pain, acute pain, radicular pain, neuropathic pain, chronic visceral pain, headaches, and special populations. This book is a must-have for anyone new to pain medicine or studying for the subspecialty certification.

Although pain is widely recognized by clinicians and researchers as an experience, pain is always felt in a patient-specific way rather than experienced for what it objectively is, making perceived meaning important in the study of pain. The book contributors explain why meaning is important in the way that pain is felt and promote the integration of quantitative and qualitative methods to study meanings of pain. For the first time in a book, the study of the meanings of pain is given the attention it deserves. All pain research and medicine inevitably have to negotiate how pain is perceived, how meanings of pain can be described within the fabric of a person's life and neurophysiology, what factors mediate them, how they interact and change over time, and how the relationship between patient, researcher, and clinician might be understood in terms of meaning. Though meanings of pain are not intensively studied in contemporary pain research or thoroughly described as part of clinical assessment, no pain researcher or clinician can avoid asking questions about how pain is perceived or the types of data and scientific methods relevant in discovering the answers.

In this yearbook for 2016 we present you with some of the latest research on pain management. We start out with chapters on nausea, lead and cancer. Then we move into a whole section on pediatric and adolescent pain. Afterwards a whole section on virtual reality and rehabilitation and finally we have a whole discussion on cannabis and its use in modern day medicine. We hope that you as the reader will find the information of interest and useful.

This book is a practical guide to the diagnosis and management of pain. Presented in a case-based approach the text begins with an introduction to pain and its pathophysiology, the next chapter discusses assessment and diagnosis of pain. The following sections provide in depth detail on the management of different categories of pain - acute, cancer-related, and non-cancer chronic pain. The final chapter covers pain management in specific situations including dysfunction related to the gastrointestinal tract, renal, hepatic, respiratory and cardiac systems, and in pregnant and breast-feeding patients, and geriatric patients. The handbook is enhanced by clinical images and tables to assist learning. Key points Practical guide to the diagnosis and management of pain Presented in a case-based approach with clinical examples Covers acute, cancer-related and non-cancer chronic pain Includes clinical images and tables

A virtualist is a doctor who specializes in virtual medicine. She uses tools like VR headsets, spatial acoustics, haptic feedback, and even olfactory mimicry to induce reactions in patients' bodies that help treat a variety of physiological and psychological conditions, from chronic pain, to compulsive behavior, without the use of pharmaceuticals or surgical techniques. Virtualists don't exist yet, but after reading VRx they just might. In recent years, scientists have established that people's perceptions - their subjective experiences of the world - influence how their bodies work. We typically have little control over our perceptions, particularly when we are sick. But what could we do if we did? In VRx Brennan Spiegel introduces readers to a new kind of medicine, called virtual therapeutics, answering exactly this question, using technology that is already available. It works through two basic but powerful psychological concepts: embodied cognition, the idea that thought processes involve the whole body, not just the brain; and presence, the ability of virtual reality to trick your body into thinking it's somewhere that it isn't, or can do something that it can't usually do. VRx takes readers on a mindbending journey through the ways in which these deep connections between our minds and our bodies are being put to good use. We learn about the woman who endures an exceptionally painful labor by completing breathing exercises on a digital beach, the schizophrenic patient who literally confronts the demon inside his head, the burn victims who are able to manage their pain better after traversing snowy virtual landscapes, and the doctor who confronted his own fear of mortality by watching himself die. Brimming with extraordinary stories of the power of virtual therapeutics to treat both physical and psychological conditions, VRx offers nothing short of a completely new way of healing.