Week 12: Death, dying, pain and loss - Research Paper Example

PSYCHOLOGY Death, Dying, Pain and Loss When I was twenty years of age, I experienced back pain that was acute and extremely disturbing to the point of lacking comfort. At that stage in life, the body is highly active and hence I associated my pain to the tasks at hand. Lack of sleep and back strain were common, and thought this could have contributed to the pain. Behavioral (specific) and cognitive pain coping strategies applied to suppress it. These included ignoring the pain sensations, increasing working activity to exercise the muscles, diverting attention and coping self statements.

This relates to a Scandinavian article on Behavioral therapy (Estlander, A 2010) on time of coping with the pain. With the situation at hand, paracetamol was the order of the day and only relieved the pain, at the instance only for it to recur. According to a case study on chronic back pain (Chronic Back Pain, 2009) state that pacing can help in breaking the over activity same as relaxation exercises. Therapy sessions can effectively alleviate the pain associated with back aches. Pain suppression can be produced by sensory and evaluation processes of the endogenous ‘opiod’ system (Gatchel, R.

& Turk, D. 2002). The biopsychosocial way of evaluating the various ways of people responses to and the presence of chronic conditions extend over time. Acute pain and failure to treat it have deleterious effects on the patient. Back pain experience gave me the insight in Berde, Schechter & yaster (2003) argument that the consequences of acute pain non-treatment can be catastrophic and incapacitate an individual. The unchecked release of stress hormones by pain can trigger injury or lead to infection.

REFERENCEBerde, C. Schechter, N. & Yaster, M. (Ed.) (2003) Pain in Infants, Children, and Adolescents. 2nd ed. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Philadelphia, Pennyslavania.Chronic Back Pain: A case study from practice (2009) available at http://metaot.com/blogs/%5Buser%5D-7Estlander, A. (1989) coping strategies in Low Back Pain: Effects of Severity of pain, Situation, Gender and Duration of Pain. Scandinavian Journal of Behavioraol Therapy. Vol.18 (1) p 21-29 available online on 23 Mar 2010 at http://www.

tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/16506078909455838 Gatchel, R. & Turk D. (Ed) (2002) Psychological approaches to Pain Management, A Practitioner’s Handbook, 2nd ed. Guildford Press New York.