Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy: A Reappraisal (Progress in Pain Research and Management Series)

Persistent pain is a common and frustrating problem for individuals involved in patient care. Among the most challenging pain syndromes are those associated with sympathetic nervous system abnormalities. These include reflex sympathetic dystrophy, causalgia, sympathetically maintained pain, shoulder-hand syndrome, and a variety of neuropathic pains. This volume represents the combined efforts of distinguished clinicians and basic scientists to achieve a synthesis of current knowledge relating the basic neural mechanisms of pain and sympathetic function, the clinical characteristics, and the diagnosis of these pain syndromes. This concise review of the problem will be helpful to health care professionals who deal with chronic pain patients and to neuroscientists working in the areas of visceral, musculoskeletal, inflammatory, and neuropathic pain.

Wilfrid Jänig, Dr med, since 1973 has conducted research at the Physiological Institute of the Christian-Albrechts-Universität in Kiel, Germany.

Michael Stanton-Hicks, MB BS, Dr med, FRCA, ABPN, FIPP is Vice-Chairman, Division of Anesthesiology Pain Management and Research at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation Pain Management Center, Lerner College of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University.