Handbook of Pain and Palliative Care

The broad aim of this edited volume is to take a multidisciplinary as well as a biobehavioral approach to understanding the effective management, evaluation, and treatment of pain across the life process, including in the context of palliative care. The central aim is to better convey how these biologic, environmental, existential, emotional, and psychosocial processes influence and interact with one another to influence the development and maintenance of chronic pain states. The collaborators for this project are experts from diverse clinical settings in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Africa providing cutting-edge research and clinical expertise from the fields of genetics, biology, psychology, anthropology, neuroanatomy, medicine, rehabilitation, pharmacology, pain imaging, gerontology, pediatrics, health services research, palliative care, as well as insights from philosophy, ethics, and public policy.
This book is organized in several major sections and then as a series of chapters. The first section provides a background and introduction of the problem of pain and palliative care in society. The second section emphasizes communication issues in pain and palliative care. The third section of the book highlights the basic science of pain. The forth section will provide a clinical review of pain conditions. The fifth section of the book emphasizes interventions for pain and pain management. The sixth section explores clinical trials for pain and palliative care. The seventh section focuses on psychosocial approaches for the management and treatment of pain and palliative care. The eight section highlights symptom control in pain and palliative care. The eighth section focuses on pain and palliative care assessment. The ninth section emphasizes socioeconomic and health disparities in pain and palliative care. The tenth section focuses on ethical and legal concerns associated with the management of pain and palliative care. The eleventh section highlights the role of health information technologies on the management of pain and palliative care. The twelfth and final section of the book is the conclusion which highlights future directions for the field.