Pain Scales and Timelines

I was talking to a doctor about pain scales. The doctor said something I thought was really interesting.

(It was one of those moments that encapsulated something I knew, but had never really come into focus in my head.)

What he said was that the only number that really meant anything to him was a 0 out of 10. There was no differentiation, as far as he was concerned, between any of the "positive" numbers. The only thing people could really report was whether they hurt or not.

I love timelines. You add data and everything comes into focus. At least if you add the “right” data.

In personal injury cases timelines tend to focus on medical appointments, dates of treatment and what the patient reported on the pain scale.

I may be part of the 1%, but I don’t think that’s the “right” data. More important than pain scale reporting is what a patient could or could not do at various times.

A detailed chart that shows fluctuations between 2/10 and 4/10 looks like it’s “objective” and medically significant. But that’s only a product of its granularity. It doesn’t really mean anything.

Much more significant than trying to quantify something like pain is whether or not someone is able to ride their bike, do Pilates, read a chapter book, sit through an entire movie, or play the flute.

#pain

#timeline

#scale