McGILL PAIN INDEX - WHERE IS CRPS PAIN RANKED?
McGill Pain Index
So many have asked us for a picture of the McGill Pain Index, so here it is. There are many versions out there. This one includes various types of childbirth pain as well. Causalgia is Latin for "burning pain". It was the first name coined for CRPS. As you can see, Causalgia is far and away the most painful form of Chronic Pain that exists! This is a good tool to use with your loved ones to help them compare our pain with other diseases and problems they can relate to. It also helps you to see that you are NOT exaggerating your pain one little bit! It is also a good graphic to use when fighting for Social Security Disability. The McGill Pain Index was first developed in 1971 as a way of gauging the quality of pain. It was developed at McGill University by Melzack and Torgerson. When creating this index they included such things as sensory qualities (skin color, temperature changes, pressure, sensitivity), affective qualities (tension, fear and autonomic properties), and evaluative issues that are help pinpointing the intensity of the pain. This Index is used by doctors and hospitals around the world and is considered a very valuable tool when looking at chronic pain It is considered to be a valid, reliable, consistent, and above all, useful instrument.
"Because pain is a private, personal experience, it is impossible for us to know precisely what someone else's pain feels like. No man can possibly know what it is like to have menstrual cramps or labour pain. Nor can a psychologically healthy person know what a psychotic patient is feeling when he says he has excruciating pain...There is a remarkable consistency in the choice of words by patients suffering the same or similar pain syndromes"
--Wall, P. D. And Melzack, R. (1994), Textbook of Pain, Churchhill Livingstone, New York, pp. 339-345. Be aware that this pain component may be relieved by specific sympatholytic procedures
So many have asked us for a picture of the McGill Pain Index, so here it is. There are many versions out there. This one includes various types of childbirth pain as well. Causalgia is Latin for "burning pain". It was the first name coined for CRPS. As you can see, Causalgia is far and away the most painful form of Chronic Pain that exists! This is a good tool to use with your loved ones to help them compare our pain with other diseases and problems they can relate to. It also helps you to see that you are NOT exaggerating your pain one little bit! It is also a good graphic to use when fighting for Social Security Disability. The McGill Pain Index was first developed in 1971 as a way of gauging the quality of pain. It was developed at McGill University by Melzack and Torgerson. When creating this index they included such things as sensory qualities (skin color, temperature changes, pressure, sensitivity), affective qualities (tension, fear and autonomic properties), and evaluative issues that are help pinpointing the intensity of the pain. This Index is used by doctors and hospitals around the world and is considered a very valuable tool when looking at chronic pain It is considered to be a valid, reliable, consistent, and above all, useful instrument.
"Because pain is a private, personal experience, it is impossible for us to know precisely what someone else's pain feels like. No man can possibly know what it is like to have menstrual cramps or labour pain. Nor can a psychologically healthy person know what a psychotic patient is feeling when he says he has excruciating pain...There is a remarkable consistency in the choice of words by patients suffering the same or similar pain syndromes"
--Wall, P. D. And Melzack, R. (1994), Textbook of Pain, Churchhill Livingstone, New York, pp. 339-345. Be aware that this pain component may be relieved by specific sympatholytic procedures
Version of the McGILL Pain Index
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Classic MCGILL PAIN INDEX
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MCGILL PAIN INDEX EXPLAINED
Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (causalgia) has a score of 42 out of 50 on the McGill Pain Index. RSD in the most painful chronic disease that is known.
The McGill Pain Questionnaire was developed in 1971 by Ronald Melzack and Warren Torgerson fromMcGill University in Canada. Their paper On the Language of Pain [Anesthesiology, 1971, v 34] proposed what was then a novel idea: It is not only the intensity of pain that matters. Each disease produces a different quality of pain: we have the burning of causalgia; the stabbing or cramping of visceral pain; and so on. The quality of pain provides a key to diagnosis and may even suggest a course of therapy.
Over several years, patients in a variety of settings were asked to fill out the McGill Pain Questionnaire. Pain scores were obtained from:
- •Women during labour Melzack et al 1981 CMAJ 125(4)
- •Patients in a general hospital pain clinic Melzack 1975 Pain 1(3)
- •Patients in a hospital emergency department Melzack and Wall 1982 Pain 14(1)
- •A group of patients with a confirmed diagnosis of causalgia Tahmoush 1981 Pain 10(2)
Melzack and Torgerson used this data to create the McGill Pain Index. It is a yardstick to quantify pain. The Index compares three categories of pain: Labour pain, clinical pain syndromes, and pain after trauma or accident. It takes the visual form of a bargraph (illustrated below).
The McGill Pain Scale remains a useful instrument for doctors because it is reliable and consistent. The original paper from 1971 is considered a classic. Anesthesiology reprinted this in 2005 under the titleClassic Papers Revisited The McGill Pain Questionnaire: From Description to Measurement.
