Pain Treatment

Current treatment of chronic pain is largely based on the severity of pain. The World Health Organization (WHO) three-step pain ladder, for example, advocates the inital use of non-opioids, followed by weak opioids and strong opioids based on the severity of pain increases. However, since most chronic pain conditions are multifactorial in nature (e.g. nociceptive and neuropathic components present) effective pain management needs to take into account the underlying mechanisms in order to choose the most targeted treatment.