Recognition for Chronic Pain Treatment

Chronic pain is defined as one that lasts at least a month, with the World Health Organization categorizing it as a new illness in 2018. Chronic pain affects physical and mental health but it goes largely ignored. According to a study on chronic pain conducted by two doctors from Tiantan Hospital in Beijing and Huadong Hospital in Shanghai in 2017, 31.5 percent of Chinese people suffer from different types of chronic pain and patients have a high tendency to depression. The study also showed that chronic pain is closely related to an aging population, and the average age of chronic pain outpatients in Shanghai was 68, of whom 60 percent had suffered for more than a year. Medical experts warned that chronic pain has become a separate clinical illness in China which needs proper treatment. Unlike other diseases that can be cured, chronic pain needs management and control of symptoms rather than striving for a full recovery. It is a basic right for patients to be relieved of pain, but the concept is not widely acknowledged. There is a long way to go for pain medicine to be fully established in China.