A Quantitative Pain Analysis Test for Herpes Zoster: Significance in Comparison to the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS)

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  • 帯状疱疹における痛み定量評価の試み―Visual analogue scale：VASとの比較意義
  • タイジョウホウシン ニ オケル イタミ テイリョウ ヒョウカ ノ ココロミ Visual analogue scale VAS ト ノ ヒカク イギ

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Abstract

Herpes zoster is a disease that is encountered relatively frequently in ordinary medical practice. Excellent antiviral drugs have been developed in recent years, and the treatment is standardized once the diagnosis has been established. However, pain control and evaluation are still not satisfactory. At present, the visual analogue scale (VAS) is the main method for objectively evaluating the degree of pain. This method is simple and said to provide a standard for evaluating pain. However, the VAS consists of the patient’s own subjective evaluations, so that there are large individual differences, and no quantitative analysis can be readily performed. Because of these issues, we have developed a quantitative pain measurement system for the purpose of evaluating pain. Using this equipment, we objectively evaluated the pre- and post-treatment pain of acute stage herpes zoster (with a pain ratio or a pain degree) and also examined the system in comparison with the conventional, subjective VAS approach. The subjects were 46 herpes zoster patients, 24 men and 22 women, 18–84 years of age. In the results, when a therapeutic effect was apparent with either means of measurement, there was a change in the values that indicated alleviation of pain. However, when we examined individual cases, we found that there were cases in which the pain ratio decreased despite the fact that VAS had increased, and there were also cases in which the reverse occurred. Upon examining these patients individually, we found that the VAS has a rather pronounced psychological element; it expresses factors that include the patient’s psychological state and dissatisfactions at a given time, rather than simply evaluating actual pain. A comparison between the two tests indicated that the pain ratio expressed the degree of pain objectively, whereas the patient’s psychological state had a considerable impact on VAS, which is a subjective pain evaluation method. Because it is possible to objectively evaluate the degree of pain using this new system, the method is of practical utility.

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