Management of painful neuropathies

Abstract

Inadequately assessed and poorly managed pain contributes both to high general medical cost and to increasing numbers of societal problems. A large determining factor of inadequate pain care is the lack of understanding about the complex nature of pain and of a rational approach to its assessment and treatment. The less than adequate assessment of neuropathic pain and its relatively poor response to typical analgesic medications are major determinants to the undertreatment of pain. Other than the important management concept of treating the underlying cause, current approaches to the treatment of pain in general, and neuropathic pain in particular, have shifted away from treatment of individual syndromes toward the identification and management of common symptoms and the mechanisms upon which such symptoms are presumed to be based. This article summarizes the features of neuropathic pain that commonly appear in most peripheral neuropathies, regardless of the mechanism of injury, and provides an approach for the selection of treatment.