Difference Between Acute & Chronic Pain

Strategies to eliminate acute & chronic pain

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What is Pain?

Pain is a very important feeling that can sometimes be difficult to understand. We typically experience pain because the brain is trying to protect a part of our body. Usually this is due to a physical injury, but sometimes this can be a pre-emptive warning from the brain that may not be necessary. It is important that we understand our pain and not let it control or limit our ability to heal. Sometimes working through the pain can be the right path to take. Our Allied Health Team can help with understanding the cause of your pain, how best to manage it, and how to prevent it returning.

Acute Injuries

Acute injuries generally have a sudden onset and usually have a clear mechanism of injury. They can be caused by direct contact or collision, or indirect contact, and occur when a force is applied to a body structure that is greater than what the muscles, ligaments, or bones can withstand.

Understanding the Difference between Acute & Chronic Pain can help guide appropriate treatment and expectations for recovery.

Physiotherapists can assist with short and long-term management of acute injuries using both hands-on treatment and a more active approach to rehabilitate you back to health.

Different types of acute injuries include:

Muscle strains, bruises, delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS)
Ligament sprains
Bone fractures
Joint dislocations
Concussion

Once you have your initial injury under control and managed effectively, our Exercise Physiologist can work with you to help transition back to your everyday activities or sport, and help prevent the injury/pain re-occurring.

Chronic Injuries

Examples of different types of chronic injuries include:

Tendinopathy (tennis elbow, golfer’s elbow)
Shoulder impingement and rotator cuff tears
Meniscal Tears
Non-specific lower back pain

Physiotherapists can assist with chronic pain injuries by identifying contributing factors to pain and recommending activity modification to prevent ongoing damage or protect the injured area. Our Physiotherapists can design graduated return to work, return to sport, or return to activity programs to help the affected body part to heal and then strengthen to prevent re-injury.

Exercise Physiologists are then able to assess and prescribe an individualised exercise program to continue building towards a healthier lifestyle or improve sport performance. Our Exercise Physiologist can evaluate relevant goals and prescribe an individualised exercise program that can continue developing you towards are healthier lifestyle or improve your sports performance.

Medical Conditions

Outside of injuries, there are many types of medical conditions that can attribute to your pain. The consideration that these conditions may present will affect how might be best to manage your pain. Understanding how your condition presents itself will help in determining the best methods to manage your pain. Your pain may affect your everyday life or make certain activities difficult to manage. To help prevent your pain from limiting you doing the things you love, it is essential you manage them carefully and with appropriate methods.

Our Exercise Physiologist can help establish a safe program that can be used in conjunction with other management strategies (i.e. medication and diet) to help address your pain and improve your quality of life.

Examples of medical conditions that may be contributing to your pain are:

Musculoskeletal conditions (such as arthritis or fibromyalgia)
Neurological conditions (such as neuropathies or multiple sclerosis)
Systemic conditions (such as cancer or chronic fatigue syndrome)
Psychological conditions (such as anxiety or PTSD)