Los factores psicosociales en el dolor crónico

Resumen

80% of medical consultations have to do with pain, and 30% of them are specifically re-lated to chronic pain. Patients with chronic pain are often referred to Physiotherapy units for treat-ment. A variety of treatment techniques and modalities are used in order to mitigate the symptoms. The therapeutic approach to these chronic pain processes varies on the basis of several criteria, in-cluding the training, degree of specialization and professional experience of the physiotherapist in-volved in the treatment. Pain, considered merely as a symptom, is generally treated under a bio-medical framework, using mechanistic physiotherapy methods, with consequent poor therapeutic results. Today, there are enough studies available to understand the influence of emotional and psychosocial factors on the perception of chronic pain, as well as the importance of taking them into account when choosing the therapy approach. Thus, the biopsychosocial model recommends an integral treatment for the patient, which contributes to increase the quality of physiotherapy ser-vices, by improving the effectiveness of treatments, the clinical results and the management of the resources. Those Health Education Programs which take into account not only physical and cogni-tive factors, but also emotional factors through cognitive restructuring techniques, attention man-agement, emotion management and therapeutic exercise, provide a valuable tool for the physio-therapist to manage these pain processes.