The color of pain
Pain is a signal to the body about failures and malfunctions. Yes, each person suffers pain in his own way: someone faints at the sight of dental instruments, and someone treats his teeth even without anesthesia. How to set the level of pain felt by a person? Doctors of various specialties asked this question more than once, because the quality of diagnosis is directly related to the quality of treatment.
When assessing pain, it is not enough to limit oneself to physiological indicators (wounds, bruises, burns) or the patient’s behavioral responses. Their main drawback is the inability to take into account the multidimensionality of pain. It is necessary to have information about its quality characteristics and how pain affects the main aspects of human activity. Therefore, physicians and psychologists develop visual color scales. Most methods for assessing pain are based on the interpretation of the statements of the patients themselves.
The most common are the so-called “visual analogue scales of pain” (“color scale”), suggesting the association of the severity of pain with color. The line can be both horizontal and vertical. The patient is asked to make a mark on this line, corresponding to the intensity of pain he is currently experiencing.
Such tools are designed to conduct rapid tests, therefore, are used during the initial assessment. This helps the doctor to obtain information about the characteristics and level of pain, how pain affects a person's daily life. Scale of pain from 1 to 10 level — an example of one of the most effective techniques allows you to accurately determine the level of pain according to the description that corresponds to specific levels and colors (each is divided into shades depending on frequency of pain).
There are tests, like "Multidimensional verbal-color pain test", which helps to define the nature of pain. Psychogenic (based on psychological reasons), somatogenic pain is caused by physical factors.
How do doctors interpret test results?
To interpret the results of such testing problematic, because each of the colors can be quite a lot of values. Therefore, for more accurate estimates immediately after conducting the test the test the patient is instructed to describe their own color associations with pain. Summarized the results show a fairly accurate picture. The only thing we know, red color is most intense pain that simply cannot be tolerated. Such techniques are the first step in the complex diagnosis, they affect the analgesia efficacy and adequacy of the selected treatment .
