IASP sponsors campaign for acute pain management

Initiative promotes better acute pain management through education, increased awareness

The Global Year Against Acute Pain launches today, focusing attention on a widely under-assessed and undertreated pain that affects most people throughout their lives. Sponsored by the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), the 12-month campaign focuses on education for health care professional and government leaders as well as public awareness to help lessen the gap between existing knowledge and technology for acute pain control and current pain management practice.

Acute pain is the most frequent reason why patients visit an emergency department, and is also a common complaint in patients of family practice and internal medicine. Acute pain is often an aspect of illness, childbirth, sports injuries and surgeries. Despite substantial advances in pain research in recent decades, inadequate acute pain control is still more the rule than the exception. If uncontrolled, experts warn that acute pain can result in extended hospital stays and evolve into chronic pain.

"We hope researchers, health care professionals, and government officials around the world join us as we work to improve education and raise awareness of acute pain management," said IASP President Eija A. Kalso (Finland). The 2010-2011 campaign, with its theme of "Anticipate, Assess, Alleviate," aims to improve acute pain management worldwide.  Led by acute pain experts Drs. Edmund Neugebauer (Germany), Tim Brennan (USA), Henrik Kehlet (Denmark), and Stephan Schug (Australia), and members of an IASP global task force, the initiative will mobilize IASP's 7,500 members and 85 national chapters, and forge partnerships with other organizations, to:

• Disseminate information about acute pain worldwide
• Educate pain researchers as well as health care professionals who see the issues associated with acute pain first-hand in their interactions with patients
• Increase awareness of acute pain among government officials, members of the media, and the general public worldwide
• Encourage government leaders, research institutions, and others to support policies that result in improved pain treatment for people with acute pain