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Pain is a leading reason that people seek medical care. Annually, pain is estimated to burden the U.S. economy with $100 billion in direct costs and $61 billion in productivity losses. These losses, which amount to a mean of 4.6 hours weekly, are largely due to diminished performance at work.1 Perhaps more significant, but more difficult to quantify, is the emotional distress and diminished quality of life that pain inflicts on individuals and their loved ones.
Pain, as defined by the International Association for the Study of Pain is “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage.”2 Thus, pain is an experience that comprises a physical sens…