The Word Pain: The Means Of Pain

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When I hear the word “Pain,” I believe that someone is hurting. Pain can be physical or emotional. Pain is defined in Merriam Webster’s dictionary as “the physical feeling caused by disease, injury, or something that hurts the body, mental or emotional suffering or sadness resulting from some emotional or psychological problem, someone or something that causes trouble or makes someone feel annoyed or angry.” The word pain originates in the late 13th century from Old French peine meaning “difficulty, woe, suffering, punishment,” from Latin poena means “punishment, penalty, retribution,” and from Greek poine “retribution, penalty” (Pain, n.d). In 14c the word Pain was transitive as causing pain, inflicting pain, causing sorrow, grief or unhappiness, …show more content…

In “A Good enough Death II,” Jeannie Chaisson (1997) explained about how doctors refused to treat a cancer patient’s pain, worrying about depressing the patient’s respiration. She described the patient tumor as being the size of a baseball on his upper chest and was causing the patient incredible pain. In “Torment,” Danielle Ofri (2003), mentions her patient describing her pain as “a dull cringing in my stomach that gradually creeps outward, until my entire body is sapped by foreboding and dread” (Ofri, 2003, …show more content…

Patients’ perception of their pain is the most important, it gives information on the pain location, severity and the nature of the pain. Pain is called the sixth vital sign, and is measured on a 0-10 scale, zero meaning no pain and ten being the worst. Pain can lead to other problems if not taken care of. I have seen patients who get agitated, and their anxiety level increases because they are afraid of the severity of their pain. Pain can increase someone 's blood pressure, heart rate and decrease oxygen saturation. Measures of pain quality can identify differences in the effects of different pain treatments, especially when those treatments operate via different pathophysiologic mechanisms (Jensen et al.,

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