Hyperpathia: “to be or not to be: that is the question”
Original article: PAIN 2018;159:1.005-9 Translation: Dr. Federico Tonero.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47924/neurotarget201886Keywords:
HyperpathiaAbstract
Neuropathic pain is caused by an injury or disease of the somatosensory nervous system. In patients with neuropathic pain, the pain generated represents a paradox, since the pathology that affects the nervous system would be expected to result in a reduction or loss of pain sensitivity. In 1979 the International Association for the Study of Pain (ISAP) published a list of pain terms that included definitions for the different categories of provoked pain: hyperalgesia, allodynia and hyperpathy. Since then there has been a rapid increase in the literature referring to the hyperalgesia and allodynia for both nociceptive and neuropathic pain situations. In contrast, studies of hyperpathy have rarely been reported. However, hyperpathy only occurs in situations of neuropathic pain and for this reason alone it could have a heuristic value. The objective of this review is to critically analyze the role of hyperpathy in the taxonomy and pedagogy of pain. We hope that the reader finds future studies on the phenomenon of hyperpathy that they find interesting and useful.
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Copyright (c) 2018 Robert Darrel Helme, Nanna Brix Finnerup, Troels Staehelin Jensen
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