Defining Neuropathic Pain

Abstract

Clinical research and practice have suffered because of lack of specificity when clinical diagnoses of pain are made. Distinction between neuropathic and inflammatory pain mechanisms is suggested, as well as the distinction between neuropathic pain from hypersensitivity pain disorders, previously termed neuropathic pain due to neurological dysfunction. Neuropathic pain is in this case defined as pain occurring in the ara of body affected by neurological disease or injury. This type of pain manifests not only with positive sensory phenomena such as pain, dysesthesia, and different types of hyperalgesia, but also with negative sensory phenomena and negative and positive motor and autonomic symptoms and signs.