Clinical Pain Management A Practical 2nd Edition 2022 by Mary E.Lynch ,Kenneth D. Craig ,Philip H. peng

In his Foreward to the first edition of this book, Clinical Pain Management: A Practical Guide, Ron Melzack emphasized that pain has many dimensions and that, despite advances in pain management and understanding, chronic pain in particular continues to be a major health concern. This, unfortunately, is still the case and many challenging problems still exist in managing and understanding chronic pain. The Introductory chapter of this second edition of the book by its three editors, Drs. Lynch, Craig and Peng, draws attention to the challenges that exist for people living with chronic pain conditions, for the clinician trying to provide effective management of the patient’s pain, for the scientist seeking to unravel the mechanisms underlying pain, and for society as a whole. These challenges stem from the complex- ity and multidimensional nature of chronic pain, the limited understanding of the processes underly- ing most chronic pain conditions, and the variety of diagnostic and therapeutic approaches advocated for pain management, some of which have little to no solid evidence base to support their use. Fur- thermore, chronic pain is in epidemic proportions in most countries, with a prevalence of around 20% or even higher, and the problem is compounded by problems with access to care and socioeconomic fac- tors. Additionally, like many other chronic health disorders or diseases, the majority of chronic pain conditions are most common in the elderly. There- fore, unless effective steps are taken soon to address this crisis, their prevalence and associated problems will continue to grow over the coming decades be- cause demographic predictions indicate that the elderly will comprise a growing proportion of the population in most countries. Chronic pain can indeed be considered a “silent” epidemic because most people, including policy- makers, have been unaware of this crisis and its ramifications. As a consequence, chronic pain has remained neglected to a large extent, despite clinical and scientific publications and pain-related societies and organizations pointing out its prevalence, the continuing difficulties and inequities with access to timely and appropriate care for many patients living with pain, and the enormous socioeconomic burden of chronic pain.