The idea that chronic pain should be considered a disease and be specifically treated as such is what a pain management expert in Australia is proposing. Michael J Cousins AM, MD, DSc, professor and director of the Pain Management Research Institute at the University of Sydney, Royal North Shore Hospital, in Australia, presented the Decade of Pain plenary session on February 14, 2008, at the 24th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Pain Medicine at the Gaylord Palms in Orlando, Florida.

Cousins has been drawing attention in Australia and internationally to evidence that shows that severe persistent pain becomes a “disease entity” and has been instrumental in the delivering the message that pain relief is a basic human right.

An estimated 76.5 million Americans suffer from chronic pain according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Studies from the Pain Management Research Institute reveal an annual cost of $1.85 billion per 1 million people.

According to Cousins, specific treatments for chronic pain should be aimed at physical, psychological, and environmental components as well as genetic predisposition.
“In the near future, diagnosis and treatment of persistent pain will be markedly different,” Cousins said. “Drugs such as morphine that provide only symptomatic relief will be replaced by or supplemented with a new generation of therapies targeted at the disease process.”