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Encyclopedia of Pain pp 60–63Cite as

Acute Pain, Subacute Pain, and Chronic Pain

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Synonyms

Pain of recent origin; Persisting pain

Definition

Acute pain is pain that has been present for less than 3 months (Merskey 1979; Merskey and Bogduk 1994). Chronic pain is pain that has been present for more than 3 months (Merskey 1979; Merskey and Bogduk 1994). Subacute pain is a subset of acute pain: It is pain that has been present for at least 6 weeks but less than 3 months (van Tulder et al. 1997).

Characteristics

Acute pain, subacute pain, and chronic pain are defined by units of time, but the concepts on which they are based are more fundamentally related to causation and prognosis. This entry discusses what the definitions imply and the clinical significance of classifying pain into these categories.

Acute pain was first defined by Bonica, in his textbook published in 1953, as “a complex constellation of unpleasant sensory, perceptual and emotional experiences and certain associated autonomic, physiologic, emotional and behavioural responses” (Bonica 1953). Bonica went...

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Research, Royal Newcastle Centre University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW, Australia

    Wade King

Authors
  1. Wade King
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wade King .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anesthesiology, Center for Pain Research, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Gerald F. Gebhart

  2. Physiologisches Institut der, Universität Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany

    Robert F. Schmidt

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© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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King, W. (2013). Acute Pain, Subacute Pain, and Chronic Pain. In: Gebhart, G.F., Schmidt, R.F. (eds) Encyclopedia of Pain. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28753-4_75

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